Google+ relaunches with “drastically simplified” design

Google+ is being relaunched around its Communities and Collections features and says it has a “much simpler” design.

By Angus Montgomery November 18, 2015 5:52 pm November 18, 2015 5:54 pm

Google+ is relaunching with a new design that it says “drastically simplifies nearly every aspect of the product”.

The social networking platform, which was set up in 2011, is relaunching around its Communities hub and its recently established Connections function.

Google+ says it is currently averaging around 1.2 million joins a day to its Communities, which allow people to gather and communicate around shared interests.

Its Collections function was added earlier this year and lets people share and organise posts based on topics they are interested in.

Eddie Kessler, director of streams at Google, says: “[Communities and Collections] are the places on Google+ where people around the world are spending their time discovering and sharing the things they love. So we’ve reimagined Google+ to help them do that.”

Kessler says the new Google+ is “much simpler and more mobile-friendly”.

He adds that the new design has been based on user feedback, adding: “We’ve spent a long time listening to what people using Google+ have to say.”

The Google+ relaunch comes just two months after Google launched a new identity, a move that came with the launch of the new Alphabet corporate identity.

Earlier this week we spoke to Google’s VP of design Matias Duarte about the company’s Material Design guidelines, which it uses both as a tool and as a way of promoting its design thinking to the wider world.