Google News gets a makeover with its new UI

Every day people come to Google News for a trusted view of the world. It's there for everything from political news to sports action and daily local news. To make the news more easy to read and navigate, Google redesigned the website with a focus on facts, diverse perspective and more control for users.

"Right now Google shows too much and in that, it shows too little," said Anand Paka, product manager at Google, said in a video call to Poynter. "Our goal here was to make readability a prime focus and pick out elements that are most important".

In the new version of Google News, the old, overpopulated list of hyperlinks and tiny thumbnails are gone. Instead, users are greeted by a news feed of articles that appear in "Cards" similar to Facebook. These stories populate according to Google's search algorithm, which aims to surface quality content first with a system of signal rankings that Google puts them through, Paka said.

Old Google news look

"Beyond the UI and the design, our desire is that it gets out of the way of the user", Paka said in the video call. "The idea here is to bring out the important things in the news".

Publishers don't have to make any changes as to how they submit their stories to Google News. This new update does not introduce any changes as all updates are happening above the publishing index. The renewed focus on video will likely drive more publishers to invest in that side of their business.