Google has begun to check a brand new Materials Design format for its desktop search outcomes. The corporate launched Materials Design in 2014 at its annual I/O convention throughout its Android Lollipop unveil, promising to unfold the brand new grid-based mostly look throughout Android, Chrome OS and the online. It is… taken some time to get there, and arguably an important of Google’s net properties — YouTube and Search – nonetheless have not made the change. Final month, Google started testing a recent search for its video streaming website, and now, we’re starting to see that acquainted grid of floating playing cards present up in google.com search outcomes.

The change is not precisely monumental: Google Search has all the time returned leads to a grid, so the essential format is functionally equivalent to the present one. The most important change is a visible one: the background within the check is a light-weight grey, and particular person search outcomes are boxed in white with a small drop shadow to suggest elevation.

One other main change is to the informative modules that Google exhibits for sure phrases. Typing “Run The Jewels,” for instance, would deliver up an inventory of search outcomes accompanied by a card displaying info on the musicians and upcoming occasions on the proper. Within the new format, this card is proven inline, earlier than the common search outcomes. Given that is only a restricted check, there’s each probability this conduct will change if Google makes the Materials Design format the default.

Small modifications elsewhere embrace new iconography for the magnifying glass within the search field, and switching out the settings cog for the three vertically aligned dots. Each the modifications will probably be acquainted to Android customers. The google.com homepage has additionally been modified according to the brand new aesthetic.

The check appears to have begun pretty lately, and on a small scale: There have been a couple of mentions of the brand new format on Twitter and Reddit over the previous week, and it is solely displaying up in a single Engadget editor’s search outcomes. The corporate often trials new options and layouts on a small group of its customers, seemingly at random. Most of the modifications by no means make their method out of the testing part. We have reached out to Google to determine its plans for the brand new design.