What you need to know
- Google is rolling out with a major redesign to Chat's mobile app, mirroring similar treatment to the web version.
- The redesign comes in the form of a new bottom nav bar, in addition to the existing one, that will have shortcuts to the home, direct messages, spaces and mentions tabs.
- Google is rolling it out to Android and iOS users in the next few weeks.
Google recently overhauled its Chat service for web users and now it looks like the mobile app is getting the same treatment.
The tech giant announced on the Workspace blog that Google Chat is introducing a redesign on Android and iOS devices to match the treatment that the messaging service received on its web counterpart.
The UI makeover will include a bottom navigation bar, which will live on top of the app’s already existing nav bar that contains shortcuts to Gmail, Chat, and Google Meet. The new bar will give you quick access to other areas of the messaging platform via shortcuts to the home panel, direct messages, spaces, and mentions.
The new Home shortcut will give you all of your conversations in one place through a unified view, equipped with a filter that lets you drill down to unread messages. You can also switch to a compact list of 1:1 messages and group chats if the unified view is overwhelming, as well as a compact list of your spaces, including those that are pinned. And, of course, the new Mentions tab neatly lists all the messages and spaces where you’ve been mentioned.
The navigation update is a valuable step forward towards aligning Google Chat’s mobile app more closely with the web version. Previously, the bottom nav bar only had two main tabs available on mobile — Chat and Spaces — so this is a significant improvement for the experience. The redesign also follows recent UI upgrades intended to make Chat look more modern, such as new message bubbles as well as news of a new logo.
As for the new nav update, Google noted it will be rolling out the redesign to Android and iOS devices “over the next few weeks,” and it will be made available to Google Workspace customers and users with personal Google accounts.
