For a writer, I tend to do quite a few image searches. Not nearly as many now as I used to do when I was actively editing Fiction Matters, but I still run several a day. The iTunes install on my work computer couldn’t find the album art for the Delgado’s Pelotron this morning, so I hit up Google to fix that. I was greeted by a new set of test results which I have screen capped for those interested.

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The first screen cap is the test version of the new Google Image results. It feels very much like Bing – with numerous results displayed on the page and the page working on the new infinite scroll that’s becoming popular. Gone are the pieces of visible metadata attached to each image.

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Or are they? Google has moved the metadata into a lightbox, which clears up the results a bit. Not shown in the image is just how responsive the page is. The metadata boxes pop up quickly and disappear without a fuss, not something I can say for Bing.

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And Google didn’t stop with merely recreating the Image search results, they finally moved into the modern era and got rid of the top frame in exchange for a lightbox and right-side frame. I’m not too terribly thrilled with this, as the old frame merely moved the fold while the new lightbox tactic obscures content. The upshot of the lightbox is that clicking off-image immediately brings the user to the results page.

All in all, a pretty neat set of improvements.