YouTube Is Testing a New Video UI That You Might Not Like

YouTube has quietly rolled out many design changes, but for the most part, they’ve either been inoffensive or people have quickly adapted to them. This one, however, might be the most sensitive yet, and I’m not sure many will embrace it with open arms.

YouTube is currently testing a significant redesign of its web video player interface, introducing substantial changes to the look and layout familiar to everyone for nearly a decade. Everything around the actual video playing UI has changed except that interface, and Google is now daring to play around with some changes to it to make it feel more “modern.” The most striking alteration in the test interface is the fragmentation of the control bar. Instead of residing on a unified, semi-transparent gradient strip, primary controls are now isolated within individual floating ‘pills’ or ‘capsules’. The Play/Pause button is still there on the left, and most of the controls are in the places you’d expect them to be, but everything looks a bit more broken apart. The ‘capsules’ themselves are opaque, probably to improve visibility in a variety of different videos regardless of the background behind.

The part that most people might not be okay with, though, might not be the actual visuals of the interface. Though they might be heavily changed, it’s probably something people will get used to after a few months. The actually offensive part is that the volume controls are now being moved from the left side to the right side. On the left side, you’re left with the Play/Pause button, a Next button if you happen to be watching a video that’s part of a playlist, and the timestamp—everything else is on the right, and the volume button is now placed alongside subtitles and video settings options.

Other than these two things, it’s probably still the same player UI we’ve come to know. It’s not a “deep” redesign that completely shifts things around, but it shifts around enough things to make some people angry.

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This potential overhaul marks the first major visual revision to the core YouTube web player in approximately ten years. We’ve seen changes to the comment section and even to the rest of the website over the past ten years, but the actual player has remained mostly unchanged. It used to be something that frequently changed with every major UI update, but other than Google adding new features to the video player, the actual UI for the player has remained unchanged. Through that time, hundreds of millions of users globally have developed deep familiarity and muscle memory associated with the current layout, so suddenly changing it might not seem right for some—especially older people who frequently use the platform.

This is currently being A/B tested, so it’s not clear if it’s something that will stick around for the long term. I don’t like it right now, but maybe I’ll change my mind.

Source: /u/NoSpHieL (Reddit) via Android Authority