Ever since 2014, Material Design has been Google’s preferred design language, with the company encouraging its use in different applications and design projects. Many designers have been quick to adopt Material Design, especially in terms of Android apps and occasional web design projects.
However, Google itself has not shown much favor to Material Design so far, with virtually none of its offerings being designed in Material Design.
All of that seems to be changing, as Google is planning to redesign Google Chrome using Material Design.
Yes, the latest version of Google Chrome is expected to feature some design elements from Material Design — there will not be any monumental design changes, but some minor elements will be introduced, as a form of transition towards Material Design for desktop users of Google Chrome.
The most obvious changes, clearly, will be made on the Downloads, Extensions, Settings and History pages of the web browser. As such, you can expect Google Chrome to get even more minimal and feature more flat design elements in its layout and appearance.
It will also be interesting to see how Google will approach the development of Google Chrome vis a vis Material Design, especially with desktop user base of the browser already being outnumbered by the mobile users. So far, Google has already been using Material Design principles on Google Chrome for Android and iOS devices, and now that the news is out, you can expect to see Material Design in practice on Google Chrome for desktop devices as well.
Read more about this development here.
What do you think of the introduction of Material Design in future versions of Google Chrome? Share your views in the comments below!
I am fully behind this movement especially since, as you stated, Google has already started implementing this on mobile. Material is all about the universal experience and frankly when it comes to browsers they should be uniform.
I already have a material design theme going in my chrome browser, but it’ll be cool to see the official implementation of it, and the choices Google’s designers make.