YouTube is apparently working on revamping its notification bars. The YouTube HQ is testing out new designs, and where best to put them on screen. It appears to be that YouTube’s Beta version is testing out new icons lined at the bottom of the screen.
This minor change occurs only in the Beta version and as of now only for iOS. Ben Geskin tweeted about the change with screenshots attached. The new icon structure outlines five icons: Home, Explore, Subscriptions, Notifications, and Library.
The Home houses the kind of content the user likes to watch or the channels they subscribe to – this is similar to the old YouTube interface which showed all the suggested videos on the front page.
YouTube Explore icon takes the user to a plethora of divided sub-categories, and each sub-category pertains to something in particular, for example, the Explore icon presents the user with ‘Trending’, ‘Music’, ‘Gaming’,. ‘News’, ‘Fashion and Beauty’, ‘Learning’, and ‘Live’. Each of these categories pertains to particular genres.
This also helps the users to declutter their content. The YouTube Subscription icon takes the users to a page that showcases only those channels that the user subscribes to. On the top of the Subscription page, the thumbnail or the profile picture for the subscribed channel appears, and a simple tap on any of those icons would list all the videos uploaded by that channel from newest to oldest.
This page also looks a lot like the front page of Instagram with story icons on top. The Notification icon takes the user to a list of notifications. The Library shows the recent videos played, history, Watch Later or other playlists.
The new YouTube icons make it easier to navigate YouTube since all of them are lined up at the bottom of the home page one after the other. YouTube will slowly roll out the new icon changes over the course of the upcoming few months.
