Chrome Web Store, Makes Finding Apps Easier

Google’s designers have given the Chrome Web Store sidebar a rejig, consolidating many of the filters and categories to make finding apps easier.

The streamlining of navigation options, chiefly in the dropping of collapsible category lists, lends the store a simpler, cleaner structure.

Three simple links sit at the top of the sidebar:Apps, Extensions and Themes. 

Depending on the item selected a set of filters will appear beneath.

For example, selecting ‘Apps’ offers choices to filter between two types: ‘Chrome Apps’(previously listed under ‘for your desktop’) and ‘Websites‘ (new filter).

Category options for all content types are now presented in a drop-down menu rather than a (seemingly never ending) set of accordion style lists.

‘Collections’ and other category items with sub-menus are now housed neatly in the drop-down:

The toolbar that previously sat above the main grid with a single, solitary “Show” filter has been removed, and its choices, sans ‘Available for Android’ which is now a category, are located in the sidebar.

The new arrangement of content and filters is as follows:

‘Apps’

• Types: “Chrome Apps” or “Websites”
• Categories: Now listed in a drop-down menu rather than accordion, includes ‘For Android’
• Features: Items previously listed under “Show” in grid view toolbar; drops ‘For Android’
• Ratings: Newly added

‘Extensions’

• Categories (including sub-menus)
• Features 
• Ratings

‘Themes’

• Categories
• Ratings 

These tweaks aren’t the only ones Google has made to its Web Store recently. Last month the look of app listings themselves was revamped, gaining a new ‘Support’ section and minor layout changes.

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