14 DAY TRIAL // Google made a quite a lot of fuss about the new unified header that would adorn all Google properties. It's been moving towards this for several months now. Late last year, the black navigation bar, introduced along with the grand redesign of last summer, was removed, replaced by a header that integrated both the share box, the profile and account controls, but also a menu to navigate to other Google products.
The new header aimed the remove the age old navbar with a more modern navigation interface. However, the menu-logo option wasn't very intuitive and wasn't very loved either.
So much so that Google went back to the drawing board, or at least took a step back and started reverting to the old black navbar for some users.
Currently, both the navbar and the header are being used, depending on the browser and the user.
Indicating that Google is really listening and learning from its mistakes, it is now experimenting with a new version of the old black navigation bar that it almost abandoned initially.
The Google Operating System blog noticed an updated version of the black bar. Menu entries are slightly more apart and the menu items are now black on white rather than blue on white.
Importantly, the updated navbar incorporates newer Google products, such as Music, Offers and Wallet. Also interesting, the share box, the Google+ notifications and the account settings menu have been slightly redesigned and integrated into the header or the proper page, moved out of the navbar.
It remains to be seen where Google aims to take this. It may be just a stopgap measure while it figures out how to do the unified header without breaking conventions as old as the web, such as the logo directing to the homepage rather than opening up a menu. But it may be the path chosen by Google moving forward, as it attempts to merge the two designs.
If you want to try out the updated navbar, you can use the following piece of code in your browser's JavaScript console - Ctrl+Shitf+J in Chrome, Ctrl+Shift+K in Firefox, F12 then "console" in IE or in the Safari Web Inspector, you have to enable the developer tools first. A more detailed guide for any of the browsers is here. Note that the code may no longer work if Google stops the test, or changes it.
