YouTube Desktop Redesign Brings Material Design, Dark Theme, and More

Among all the Google-owned services that exist today, YouTube is one that has desperately needed a makeover for a long while now. And it looks like the popular video sharing service is finally set to get a desktop revamp soon that promises to give a cleaner look with a little more emphasis on videos, as it should be.

Google announced via a YouTube blog post that it is working on rolling out a new UI for the service's desktop website. The company is also letting you get a sneak peek at what you can expect from the revamp by heading over to youtube.com/new. As the company states, YouTube will be getting a revamp under Google's Material Design philosophy, which will essentially focus on simplicity, consistency and beauty.

If you head over to the test version of the site you'll notice a few aesthetic changes. The new UI wants to emphasise on videos and to do that, Google is getting rid of the extra grey areas behind the videos for a whiter overall look. The video thumbnails are also enlarged and the link within the thumbnails are now black. The left side of the Home Page which sees the navigation bar also appear cleaner, larger and the channel thumbnails are now round rather than square.

Additionally, the language and location options that were previously found right at the bottom have now moved over to the navigation bar on the left. This is probably because YouTube doesn't want the scrolling to end as it is testing out bottomless scrolling feature. Google feels that it's the little things that make a difference and so even the YouTube logo and home buttons are smaller, while the subscribe button is a lot more prominent.

YouTube is also looking to bring a widely requested feature i.e., the Dark Theme. The new theme has been developed on Polymer, a new, faster framework that the site design is being built on. The Dark Theme, as it suggests, turns the background black, which will make for a better viewing experience and lowers the strain on your eyes, especially when browsing the site at night.

Google says that the test site can be viewed right now and the company is still working on improvements, so you may see some more changes when it officially becomes available. You can head over to the test site to check out the new UI. The Dark Theme can be activated by tapping on your profile in the test site and clicking on the Dark Theme option in the drop down menu.