Google Search Knowledge Panels Get Material You Redesign on Desktop and Mobile: All Details

Google's knowledge panels have been a great way to get more information about a topic, person or thing. These tiles traditionally show up as a column on the right side of a Google search result (depending on the topic) and give out bits of information which may be a bit more relevant to the search query compared to the usual hyperlinks in blue below the search bar. A new redesign that's rolling out to both desktop and mobile is now making them a lot more useful, while updating the search giant's interface with a modern design to match its other products.

First spotted by 9to5Google, the new knowledge panel layout looks very much like Google's Material You design philosophy for its Android-powered devices with large cards with rounded corners that are laid out on a coloured background that's relevant to search query. So searching for “pesto” will show a knowledge panel with a green theme with matching cards (or tiles), while the spice “saffron” will show a matching red-coloured overlay. The coloured knowledge panel layouts not only work for things or for objects that have a defined colour, but also for people. The theming of the panel changes according to the images on display in the panel, which means they will vary and change accordingly depending on the images pulled up on search results.

The new knowledge panel layout showcases the name of the person or thing with a bell icon to the right to subscribe for notifications from that particular subject. This is immediately followed by large images of the person or object followed by other cards which give out information that can span between age, to ‘net worth', to recent tweets and sports statistics for known persons, to ‘things to know' and recipes for a particular spice or food ingredient.

Knowledge panels for places have a similar layout, but with cards showing the weather at that particular location along with travel details to ‘get there' (which links to flight bookings) and a small map with places of interest pinned on it (which opens up in Google Maps). The implementation and integration work well and the new redesign does bring all of the important glanceable information at the beginning of the search result on both desktop and mobile, which is useful. We did notice a few instances where the themed card layout of the knowledge panel appeared far below when searching on mobile, but these are for broader search terms.

One detail to keep in mind is that these redesigned knowledge panels are not available for all people, places, organisations and things (or search categories) currently, so users may spot several of these with the older layout. However, these could be gradually updated by the search giant as the redesign is rolled out to users around the world.