YouTube New Feature-Optional Dark Theme & Faster Framework For Desktop

YouTube New Feature-Optional Dark Theme & Faster Framework For Desktop

YouTube is launching a redesign of its desktop site during the celebration of their 12th year in service. The new design features Google’s design language and material design. This makes it simpler, cleaner, and more consistent with the YouTube app across devices. By highlighting your favorite videos and creators it makes YouTube more fun and easier to use.

The New and Faster Framework

The new site design is built on a new faster framework known as Polymer. It allows for the YouTube team to build new features faster than they could have done before. The experience of using YouTube on the desktop is now faster with the new design.

Building of YouTube on Top of Polymer

This project was started a year ago. The Polymer is an open source JavaScript library that was introduced at the Google I/O developer. It allows developers to create web contents that can be re-used. Even though it is less visible to end users, it is the most significant aspect of YouTube’s redesign. It allows for things built once to be reapplied more quickly. The Polymer is more about the velocity of the things that can be brought to market and less about a particular feature.

The New Website

The New Website
It features the material design-infused makeover that is employed across ChromeOS, Android, and other online Google platforms. The design allows you to tuck away the left side navigational elements out of view. Clicking on the hamburger menu at the top leaves this off the screen. It has three main sections at the top namely Home, trending, and subscriptions. They are followed by the library, which entails your purchases, save, and playlist among others. Lastly, there is a list of your individual subscriptions. The homepage is now endless meaning that as you scroll down you never reaches the end. It contains an endless list of recommendations from the channels that you have subscribed to as well as those that YouTube thinks you will like.

The New Design of the Channel Page

Unlike before the channel features a full-width page banner, which is at the top of the screen. The hero media is larger as well, which is the video that plays to introduce the channel as well as show off its latest contents. The navigational elements such as Home, Playlist, Video, Discussions, Channels, About etc., are larger and simple to navigate through as compared to the old design. Instead of the channels being on the sidebar, they have tucked away under their tab in the new design. The subscribe button which is red in color is larger in size and really pops against the background. It is also prominent on search results where it shows up at the top when your search query matches with a channel. As a result, it now easier to notice the difference between channels and content in search results page. Watching a video n the channel is easier with the theater mode. The theater mode features a black background and is slightly wider.

New Features Included in the New Site

  • Clean Design: The new design allows you to view the content and creator in a simple and clearer design.
  • A New Dark Mode: The YouTube’s new Dark Theme cuts down on glare and takes in the true colors of the videos you watch. It turns your background dark. It was easy to develop on Polymer. Changing a few settings in your chrome browser will enable you to view the theme. The mode is optional. You can activate the dark theme from the new account menu.
  • Tweaks: They will enable you to search and channel pages.
  • An Update Theater Mode: The theater mode will enable you to watch videos without going full screen. It is slightly wider and features a dark background making the videos more clear.

Advantage of Switching to Polymer

Advantage of Switching to Polymer
The open source JavaScript library allows the YouTube team to spend more time working on improving latency. Latency is a thing that allows you to invest in making better. When the consumption of media is more immediate the better. The team is also working on how they can get you to what you want to watch faster. Another advantage is the new dark theme.

Advantages of Using the New Design Over the Old Design

  • It features an optional dark theme that allows you to watch videos clearer.
  • The new look is clean and simple.
  • The performance in the new design is faster.
  • It eliminates the visuals that can disrupt your browsing or watching experience.
  • The main menu has smaller font size, which maximizes the number of video thumbnails that appears on the screen.
  • You can hide the menu entirely.

Also Read: YouTube to acquire Twitch for $1 billion

Conclusion

You can try out the new design by visiting the official new website. The new YouTube is still in the progress thus there will be a limit on how many people will be in a position to opt for the new experience. You can send your views about the design from the Account Menu. This will allow the YouTube team to get the feedback about the new design for them to make it better. You can also restore the old design by selecting “Restore classic YouTube” from your Account Menu. The new design is easier and more fun to use as it highlights your favorite videos and creators. The YouTube team is looking forward to coming up with more powerful new features.