Google’s Getting Personal With Its New Visually Optimized User Experience
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The tech giant’s at it again. On Monday, September 24, Google announced new search changes and features that will help personalize the user experience even more. Having recently celebrated its 20th anniversary, Google’s changes will help it remain timely and competitive in the tech space.
Stories
Similar to Instagram, Snapchat and Facebook Stories, Google announced its own Stories feature, which is now available via search results pages. The feature is currently only available for searches on notable people and celebrities like chef Giada De Laurentis. Users can click to watch a series of short videos with information from various sources on the subject. Google didn’t say when the Stories feature would be available for other search topics.
Discover, Search and Images
At the San Francisco event, Google announced that Google Feed is being renamed Discover. Discover will be similar to Facebook’s News Feed experience in that it will use an algorithm to serve users content that it thinks they’re interested in. Users can also follow topics that they’re interested in to see more content like it in their Google experience. Discover will also have a new prime location directly below the search bar on the mobile browser. It will roll out on mobile screens over the next few weeks, though Google didn’t say when Discover would roll out on desktop browsers.
Additionally, through the new Topic Layer on its Knowledge Graph, Google will now organize information by topic, creating pages for general areas of interest. It’ll also aim to serve users evergreen content that has been seen as helpful in the past, such as videos and articles on specific topics, while improving page rank for the most optimized experience.
Google images will also be updated this week to provide more context on the images’ subject matter and links to additional information. And through updates to Google Lens, users will be able to search for more information on specific details within an image.
Journeys, Collections and Activity Cards
The new Google Journeys feature will keep track of and save users’ previous searches on specific topics, such as camping gear or a specific dog breed. These saved searches will become collections of information and websites that will be housed in the new Activity Card tool so users can quickly access them and resume searches. Google said the new feature will help users retrace their steps, and will be available later this year. Users can opt out of Google Journeys if they don’t want their previous searches saved for them.
The tech powerhouse hopes these new updates and changes will help users find their next hobby and further develop their interests through its improved, visually optimized search experience.
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