YouTube testing new video page design, try it now
Google appears to be working constantly on some of the company's most popular properties. An example where new designs are tested regularly is the Internet's most popular video hosting and watching destination YouTube. Google just recently was testing a new homepage design that made the site look more like the design on Google+ with its white background and minimalistic menu.
Today word got out that YouTube is also testing a new video page design, and it too seems to favor minimalism and white colors as well, probably to go along with that new homepage. The new design makes several changes to the content area on the video part of the site. Take a look at the following screenshot to see what I mean.
The first thing that you may notice is that the designers have moved the title below the actual video, and that the uploader's/channel's name and subscribe button are now displayed prominently beneath that.
The like, details, share, add to and flag as inappropriate links are displayed beneath that. A click expands all of them in the same content area in a horizontal animation instead of the vertical animation that the old YouTube design displayed in this case. Most of the buttons on the page have been turned into links with icons instead.
If you want to get that new Youtube video page design, you need to do the following:
- In Google Chrome, open YouTube.com, and press Shift-Ctrl-J
- In Firefox, open YouTube, and press Shift-Ctrl-K
- In Opera, open YouTube, press Ctrl-Shift-i, and switch to Console
- In Internet Explorer, open YouTube, press F12 to open the web developer toolbar, and switch to Console
Now paste the following line into the console:
document.cookie="VISITOR_INFO1_LIVE=CuSA6Z9VUog;path=/; domain=.youtube.com";window.location.reload();
The console should return undefined. Reload the YouTube page you are on or load another page instead to see if the changes worked correctly.
What's your take on the new YouTube video design? I think it goes along well with the new minimalistic homepage design, and could be an indication that Google eventually will make the switch. The concentration on the user and subscription button is also something that businesses and users who upload videos to YouTube will like. (via GoogleWatchBlog)
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I got this new layout automatically, but do not like it. How to revert it back to the old layout?
can’t add favorites with this layout atm
Cookie doesn’t work!
They also removed the dropdown where you could scroll five pages of videos posted to the channel around the same time the current video was.
Removing that kills it for me but I’d heard rumors that was going bye bye….
Google continues to make unnecessary and poor “upgrades” to the youtube layout. Obviously pushing their agenda (G+ or probably G-TV)….
how the hell do i turn this crap off, i didn’t even want this but YT just had to change it.
Yeah from a designer viewpoint it’s an interesting development but doesn’t really transform your viewing experience that much.
Personally I don’t spend hours wandering aimlessly around YT anymore, usually just go directly to vids from embedded web page links or hit new subscribed channel entries. So I’m agnostic about all this page design tweaking.
Also the current Opera downloader extension is (obviously) not compatible with this new format so I had to delete cookies and return to current format.
Hah! I like this look! Thanks for this!