Google Relents, Introduces Two-Column View in Google News

Google News got a major redesign a couple of weeks ago, the first since it was launched. The result of months of testing, the new site has been received very well, according to Google. However, a group of users have been very vocal about their dislike of the new Google News and have complained to Google and everywhere else they could, asking for the option to use the old version.

That’s not going to happen any time soon, but Google has made some concessions and has now introduced an option to view the personalized section of news in two columns, reminiscent of the old layout.

“At Google, we’re all about launching and iterating, so we've been making improvements to the design in response to your feedback. For example, we're now showing the entire cluster of articles for each story, rather than expanding the cluster when you hover your mouse over it,” Chris Beckmann, Product Manager for Google News, listed some of the changes since the new design was introduced.

“We've given you the ability to hide the weather forecast from your local news section. We made the option to switch between List view and Section view more obvious. And today we’re adding a third option in ‘News for you’: Two-column view, which shows the three top stories from each section,” he announced.

The new option splits ‘News for you’ in half and should allow users to get a better overview of the headlines without having to scroll down to see all of the sections. This has been one of the biggest criticisms of the revamped site and Google hopes it should appease at least some of the unsatisfied users. Google says it plans to roll out even more changes and tweaks based on feedback. It remains to be seen if this change will be enough to calm the angry mobs.