Google's 'Unified Design' and the importance of optimal display

You may have recently noticed that Google has changed the design of its search results on your mobile phones and tablets. The results are reformatted to look a lot cleaner and simpler than results previously appeared, and organized on separate cards so that results are distinctive and thus more readable.

This change may seem minute, but it calls to focus the importance of the display of search to capture and retain the audience. While getting accurate search results is critical, users will likely leave if the experience is frustrating or if deciphering what is actually on the page actually makes the process more difficult.

Assumed is that Google has invested a great amount of time understanding how people use mobile and utilize search before they determine structure, content placement, font, etc. of the results. Perhaps most interesting in the new results is the clear call out to what is an ad, noted by a large orange 'ad' button next to the search topic. This suggests that users highly desire knowing what placements are ads, and that ads may be more effective when they are known to be ads rather than organic results.

In my opinion, Google has done a nice job to reformat its results while retaining its natural, 'original' Google look. However, it initially seemed to me that each actual result is very large and results will require much scrolling. I would think Google would favor smaller results, to reduce scrolling, and thus charge a higher amount for results positions lower than the top few. Alternatively, this may just place greater importance on the top few results and push bids for these positions even higher.