YouTube rolling out widely-hated redesign again

After first appearing earlier this year, YouTube once again appears to be rolling out a new redesign for its website that everyone hates.

In mid-April, Google started testing a redesign to YouTube’s website, which moved the title of the video, its description, and the comments to the side of the screen. In their place, video recommendations were moved directly underneath the video being watched with much larger thumbnails and titles.

The change was widely hated by almost everyone who got it, but it didn’t show up for all users. In the weeks to follow, YouTube reverted the redesign.

Now, the YouTube redesign is back.

As spotted by many users, YouTube has started rolling out this redesign yet again. The new look has been appearing over the past few days, though it doesn’t seem like it’s a wide rollout. Rather, it appears to still be a test more than anything else.

What does this second attempt mean?

It’s still unclear if YouTube intends to make this new look the default experience, but a second round of testing certainly implies more data is being gathered.

Notably, some have pointed to tweets like this one from YouTube regarding the new layout where YouTube says that it’s just an “experiment.” These largely appear to be canned replies, though, rather than being specific to the individual situation. So, while it’s likely true that this design is just an experiment, that doesn’t give any insight on what YouTube intends to do with the new design in the future. In one reply, YouTube says that most experiments “only last a few weeks,” which also may or may not apply to this particular situation.

What do you think of the new YouTube design? Let us know in the comments below.

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