YouTube update for desktop brings new design and playlist enhancements

By Trevor Mogg February 21, 2014

Image used with permission by copyright holder

YouTube is starting to roll out the latest redesign to its Web interface, at the same time adding a few new features to hopefully enhance your video-streaming experience.

Design-wise, the team behind the Google-owned site has moved to a center-aligned look, which helps it fit more neatly on screens of all sizes, YouTube Web developer Yining Zhao said in a blog post introducing the changes. The refreshed layout also moves the desktop version closer to the look of YouTube’s mobile apps, which, says Zhao, are now used as much as the Web version.

They’ve done some work geared toward enhancing the playlist element of the service, too. For example, clicking on the guide icon to the right of the YouTube logo will bring up all your playlists – including those from other channels you like – as well as your subscriptions and other information, while new editing options are set to smooth out the process of creating and managing playlists.

In addition, you can now “quickly flip between what’s recommended and popular in What to Watch….and the latest from your subscribed channels in My Subscriptions, with both options now front and center,” Zhao wrote.

This latest update comes just weeks after Google appointed Susan Wojcicki as head of YouTube, taking over from Salar Kamangar who’d been charge for a little over three years. Wojcicki, who was once described as “the most important Googler you’ve never heard of,” arrived in her new position from the top job in the Web giant’s ads and commerce division.

According to Google CEO Larry Page, the new boss has “a healthy disregard for the impossible and is excited about improving YouTube in ways that people will love,” so it’s safe to say we can expect a whole lot more changes at the streaming site as the year rolls on.

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