An internal test build shows the new design trend for Calendar and Google apps in general

Feb 18, 2010 11:37 GMT  ·  By

It's not much of a secret that Google is always working on and testing new features or versions of its products. When it is satisfied with the current state of a feature or just needs a lot of data, it quietly serves the test versions to a small subset of users. With hundreds of millions of people using its most popular products, it only needs a very small portion of them for conclusive results.

However, most of the time, the test subjects are Google employees themselves and almost every new project or update gets tested in-house first. This seems to be the case with a Google Calendar redesign, which TechCrunch managed to get some screenshots of.

The source of the screenshots isn't exactly clear but it looks like it's an internal build and not a public test, like it's usually the case with these leaked screenshots. The testing version is mostly a visual revamp and doesn't actually come with any new features, at least, not directly related ones from what can be seen. The layout gets a few tweaks, nips and tucks, and the design elements get a bit of a spruce up.

The colors are livelier, which seems to be a recurring theme in the current Google design trend, and the overall look is a bit tidier and simpler, showing that even Google's minimalistic designs can be improved upon. Google Calendar gets buttons instead of tabs, in some cases, the same silver buttons like in Gmail, for example.

The screenshots also have a couple of features not part of the default Google Calendar layout like the world clock on the right. The feature is available in Google Calendar Labs, which launched last summer, and probably won't be integrated in the final design. However, it's interesting to see that the World Clock widget gets integrated in the new design and the right sidebar that houses it now a part of the main calendar section.

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The testing version of Google Calendar
The regular version of Google Calendar
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