Summary
- Google Chat has undergone a redesign, streamlining its navigation and providing new menu options, creating a refreshed app experience.
- The redesign includes a new bottom bar with four icons for Home, Direct messages, Spaces, and Mentions, as well as a floating action button for creating new chats.
- Some users have already received the update, but the rollout has been slower than expected, taking around three weeks for the changes to appear on Android devices.
Google Chat unveiled its redesign back in November, and it’s changed mightily. The fresh look streamlines navigation with a new bottom bar that livens up the whole app experience, providing new menu options to choose from. Google announced the change in its Google Workspace Updates blog, but it’s taken a few weeks for the redesign to roll out onto our smartphones. Now, with a new Chat app update, users are starting to see the new UI on their devices.
While our team has yet to see the update hit our phones, 9to5Google’s writers are reporting that the redesign has rolled out to some of their devices. Google Chat’s latest update on the Google Play Store was made on Dec. 5, so this change looks like it’s being enabled on Google’s server-side backend. Regardless, as wide-scale rollouts usually go, it’s taking a longer period of time than we hoped for to see the change made on Android devices. Originally, Google said it would start taking effect on Nov. 29, but the blog also mentioned that it could take longer than 15 days to be visible. It’s been exactly three weeks since Nov. 19.
Source: 9to5Google
Those who have access to the new look will see the bottom bar is now a floating pill containing four icons right next to an additional floating action button (FAB) that’s more squared. From left to right, the icons inside the pill are for Home, Direct messages, Spaces, and Mentions, while the FAB next to the pill is for creating a new chat. In the Gmail app, the entire bar containing the Chat pill and accompanying New Chat button is now its own FAB that appears when pressing the middle chat icon on the bottom bar on Gmail.
The redesign’s substantial changes put Google Chat more in line with other Google apps and software that have been injected with a dose of Material You over the past couple years. To be honest, we’re not sure if we’re fans of the design changes that have been made to Chat and other apps in the Google Suite over the past few years. We wrote over three years ago about how Gmail, Calendar, Drive, Docs, and Meet all look the same after Google released new icons for them. It’s hard to distinguish between most Google apps when looking at their logos, and most of them now feel too similar when using them. Gone are the days of individuality among Google’s software, it seems.
Google Chat is for any and all types of users, but it definitely gets its usage the most from business and enterprise accounts. It’s accessible via your Android smart device, iOS-based iPhone or iPad, or favorite web browser, meaning you can use it on practically any device anywhere you go. This makes it a great choice for company communication, so if you’re spending most of your days using the program, utilizing the right tips and tricks for Google Chats is important once you get Chat up and running.
