YouTube recently announced a significant update to improve the interface and interface navigation. This update enhances touch navigation with a new streamlined bottom bar and landscape mode. The new features only appear when the app is in landscape mode. This helps guide users to awesome videos more effectively. 

The bottom bar has, therefore, been made smaller and easier to navigate than it used to be. Further improvements to landscape mode bring the icons and the arrangement of the paths in the Workbench into sharper focus. Further, the suggested video recommendation algorithm has been updated to provide the user with more engaging content.

Updated Bottom Bar

As part of the latest update, YouTube has modified the lower toolbar. It has shifted its elements to make them more easily accessible. The Home, ‘plus’ menu, Subscriptions, and You icons have been changed to be more unified and straightforward. 

Moreover, specific problems with the visual layout of the bottom bar have been fixed. The overall sleeker design and cleaner lines also improve the user experience and how users interact with YouTube content, as seen below.

Frosted Glass Effect

One of the newest trends in design is the frosted glass. This includes a layer of thin, semi-opaque film that gives it a hazy, blurred appearance. It is typically applicable to provide an impression of depth, transparency, and interest in the user interface's Areas of Interest.

How It Makes Browsing Experience More Engaging

Depth and Dimension: The frosted glass look also maintains the originality of the whole interface's depth. This feature creates an impressive illusion of more activity than there is.

Transparency and Clarity: The peculiarity is that users can see through the frosted overlay. It enhances transparency and makes the content look more approachable.

Visual Interest: Frosted glass provides a unique aesthetic. This feature showcases innovative designs and sets it apart from other products or structures on the market.

Cross-selling on Mobile, Web, and TV

The frosted glass effect is in implementation across various platforms, including:

Mobile Apps: Frosted glass overlays can benefit mobile apps by producing engaging, aesthetically pleasing, and easy-to-navigate interfaces.

Websites: Today, technologies allow the use of frosted glass on websites. These elements can contribute to an attractive design and a comfortable interface.

TV Interfaces: Smart TVs can employ frosted glass effects to engage customers more personally.

New Landscape Mode

An enhanced user interface backs it by introducing a new slim mode suitable for mobile phones. Key improvements include:

Larger Thumbnails: Popular videos and those by channel creators were in large size to give users a better idea of what each video contains before selecting it for viewing.

More extensive Text: Leave video titles and descriptions blank and use Zoom for better textual legibility on large screens.

Optimized Layout: The developers corrected the page layout from the mouse-over thumbnails to accommodate the content in landscape format.

Rollout Plan

Available information indicates that the new layout improvement in the YouTube application will, however, be implemented in stages, with the company likely starting with phasing in the much-improved landscape mode.

The feature, bottom bar, and landscape mode will be available only on Android and later on iOS at launch. This phased approach enables the identification of issues with the feature and modification before serving the broader market.

Additional Design Updates

YouTube has also made some slight aesthetic changes to improve the website's appearance. Spots of pink and other softer notes are new repeatedly to add some liveliness to the general mood. Subtle gradient areas and subtle animations create as much movement as possible within the interface, making an application more interesting. 

Also, Users located the Interim updates of the YouTube Music web app. This includes a new home page design and more precise navigation. These changes are in intention to make the service more transparent, especially for the average and power users of music streaming services in their daily lives.

The Wrap Up

The latest YouTube UI overhaul is full of promises. Here, we have the redesigned bottom bar and landscape mode, elements, and minor tweaks. Such shifts offer users greater simplicity, entertainment, and graphic display.

The former change to the right bottom bar enhances navigation through the application. Secondly, the new and better landscape mode enhances a viewer’s experience. 

Also, improvements are being fine-tuned and bring variety to the GUI of computer products. Most users use those new features to discover how they can engage with their content on YouTube in new ways.

Related Reading: YouTube is Now Removing the Skip Button on Mobile Devices