Welcome to the latest installment of our Innovation Series, a behind-the-scenes look at how the YouTube features find their way to your screen, as told by the people who create them.
By now, you’ve probably noticed that YouTube looks and feels a little different. At the end of October, we rolled out a cleaner, more immersive design update which has, so far, been received positively.
From the beginning, we wanted the design changes to feel like a natural evolution of our product, so we embarked on a journey — creating hundreds of concepts and testing them with tens of thousands of users via research, experimentation and diary studies. Along the way, we got the data points to confirm, inform and finalize our design decisions.
To peel back the curtain a bit, let’s zoom into how we implemented updates across a few foundational elements and introduced a new visual pattern — ambient mode — to enhance our collections and watch experience.
Rounded buttons and thumbnails
When YouTube was born 17 years ago, desktop web capabilities were not as advanced as they are today. Now, we’re designing for a much more complex and sophisticated interaction — whether that’s watching a full-screen video, swiping through photos or commenting on a post.
To kick off our visual update, we decided to address two highly visible elements in our ecosystem: buttons and video thumbnails. We began researching and testing things as small as pixel variations to create a friendlier and more tappable UI. Eventually, we confirmed our theory that rounded shapes do indeed feel more friendly, inviting and comfortable to tap.