Plenty of folks, including u.s.a., found a few of Apple's changes to Safari in iOS 15 to be familiar, resembling a redesign Google spent years testing for Google Chrome. While that UI, originally called Chrome Dwelling, was ultimately abased after years of testing on users, a erstwhile Googler and designer intimately involved with the changes recently published a short only fascinating account of the time that pulls aside the curtain on the ascension and fall of Chrome's now-defunct bottom navigation bar.

Ex-Googler Chris Lee was one time a designer that worked on Chrome. Specifically, he takes credit for changes including the tab groups and Chrome "Home" — no, non that Home, or that other Home — later on chosen Duet and Duplex — no, not that Duplex. Virtually-continuous proper noun confusion aside, Chrome Dwelling house and its related changes were meant to rethink Chrome'due south interface, not necessarily past entirely changing how it worked, but by ameliorate organizing the features that were already there to make it more usable. While the related UI experiments covered a vast (and sometimes seemingly misguided) range, that essentially meant bringing UI elements to the bottom of the screen where they were ostensibly easier to admission.

Chrome Home demo via Chris Lee.

Of course, the tense of this discussion and the fact that Chrome doesn't look like this on your telephone correct now ways the test didn't exactly work out. But the history behind it, as illuminated by Lee, offers insight into how even a projection's creator tin can (and should) modify their mind in the face of data.

The original goal backside Chrome Dwelling, according to Lee, who takes credit for the original concept and pitch dorsum in 2016, was to create a new gestural system for using Chrome, taking amend reward of the app's growing feature set without hiding things behind a slowly bloating 3-dot menu, while also increasing usability in the face of inexorably ballooning smartphone screen sizes. With all that extra space, reaching the top of the screen was more than difficult, and so why not relocate things further down where they're easier to hit?

The concept proved popular internally and Google made it a priority, with Lee at the helm of a team to refine and examination the design, experimenting with tweaks that went further afield than just moving the address bar — many of which were spotted in testing over the years. In that vein, the company decided the only manner to properly test information technology was in alive betas, which many of us using Android from 2017-2020 or and then likely call up as a indicate of defoliation as Chrome'south look and interface seemed to modify apace and randomly.

A gallery of various Chrome UI changes tied to Home, Duplex, and Duet — at that place were a lot of them.

Several unlike changes were tested, from simply moving the existing address bar to the bottom of the screen to subsequently breaking out private features into a "split" bar in Duet — the latter covered a range from a bar loaded with varying numbers of buttons to break out features from the tiptop bar and iii-dot carte, all the manner to a "Conditional Tab Strip."

Lee claims the Chrome Home lesser accost bar had a "cult post-obit." Though initial responses among our own readership were negative, by the fourth dimension the company tested moving the accost back to the top of the screen, many appreciated the feature and were upset at its loss. However, the change proved less popular among a more full general audience with "varying tech literacy." Ultimately, Lee switched from Chrome Home's original creator and one-fourth dimension team lead to an advocate against it. And equally nosotros can all tell from this vantage point, Chrome Home didn't ultimately work out, though Safari on iOS fifteen is taking articulate design cues from Google, and even Samsung started duplicating some of Google's abandoned changes.

We've all seen and read about both Google's all-encompassing and sometimes frustrating public betas and the visitor's seeming willingness to kill ideas, features, and products even if they're widely used, but the internal machinations behind that decision-making procedure are rarely transparent. Lee'due south memorial to Google Home offers a unique glimpse into the subject, and as Apple starts picking up where Google seemingly stopped, we're left wondering if the changes tested past Google Home/Duet/Duplex could make a return to Chrome someday.