Google News Design: Apple News Rival Shows Distinguished Direction with Similar Overall Impression

Google announced the revamp of its News App at its I/O developer conference in May, 2018. Although the Google News product suffered from backslash on its redesign project in 2017, the overall referral traffic to publishers has grown 50% since January of 2017 and it is an essential platform for both users and publishers. Since Google is a search dominant site and as a lot of users still search for news, Google is still advantageous for providing news that is most relevant to users. The redesign project focuses on 3 aspects; Keep up with news you care about, understand the full story, and enjoy and support the news sources you love. The project aims to refine the product package by strengthening its serendipitous opportunities and challenging other dominating new source platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, Flipboard, and Apple News.

The main newsfeed is tailored “For You”

The main news discoveries happen in the “For You” tab. The experience is a vertical feed consisting of various sections. “Top Stories” are topics that are selected by users such as “Business.” “Local News” is based on users’ home addresses and publishers that are also selected by users. Some sections are composed and modified based on users’ proactive customization, but most experiences delivered are already tailored to users, thanks to the ubiquity of Google products. The interface is simple and minimal following the material…