Google Docs, Sheets And Slides Get New Home Screens With A Taste Of Material Design

Google has rolled out a new look for its Docs, Sheets and Slides productivity web app suite, with new homepages for each that present your content in a visual grid and that introduce just a hint of Material Design into the look and feel of the apps, with bold edge-to-edge fields of color and some basic animations.

The new start pages for Docs, Sheets and Slides do make it a lot easier to find your relevant file and start working on it, but it’s a mobile paradigm brought to the desktop instead of the list-based design that previously let users navigate their files, which more closely approximated the hierarchical file folder system those used to Finder and Windows Explorer might be more comfortable with. Luckily you can switch to that style of navigation with a single click.

Personally, I’m a big fan of the new look, and I hope it gets even more of Material Design’s slick good looks and bold, minimal style as Google progressively rolls out its new design principles across its properties.