From time to time you hear of Google tweaking their UI (User Interface). As they have such a large population of users it’s not often you actually get to be in one of these test groups. Below is a video of a recent test they performed, and my main google a/c was in the test. In this particular test Google remove all the surrounding links :
And once you focus your mouse on the input box to put in your search query, the other links are then shown. For this test it wasn’t every visit to google.de resulted in such a behaviour, it was more randomised.
Google UI Testing Video
Use full screen to see more details.
Google can generate valuable information from these testing sessions in the areas of usability / accessibility / user experience / conversion optimisation. What do you think of all these Google UI tests ?