Google Search gets wider

A while ago, Google decided to make it’s search box wider. I found out through a tweet from Mashable (here.)

I’m not sure how I like the widened search box. All of a sudden, Google’s “minimalistic” search page has gotten a lot more disproportionate. The Google logo looked much better the way it was before with a smaller text entry area and smaller buttons. However, it emphasizes on the fact that the Search is Google’s main function.

On Mashable.com, there was a blog post about it, which is reblogged here.

This post first appeared on Mashable.com under the title Google Goes Looooooooonger, Supersizes Its Search Box. It was written on September 9th, 2009 by Barb Dybwad, and has been edited by Deathgleaner for publication on this blog.

What’s better than a search box with two buttons? A bigger search box with two buttons, says Google.

Today the search giant implemented and announced a subtle but noticeable change to the size of the search text field on the Google home page: it’s bigger. It also features a larger font size as you type in the field, with correspondingly larger text for Google Suggest results below (that are occasionally good for a laugh).

The company says the reason behind the change is to remind us that Google’s focus is on search. That’s a relief, because with that smaller text box in place before, we just weren’t sure.

The change is interesting in light of Google’s recent patent on its minimalist homepage interface… that the company is now changing. Of course, it’s not the first time Google has tweaked the homepage, and if you’re interested, here’s a slideshow timeline showing off the various changes through the years.

What do you think: does a larger textbox make the search engine more “fun to use”? Or if we hadn’t told you, would you even have noticed?