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Its unlimited A/B beta testing, for now
The color red is a big part of YouTube’s branding identity. The video platform is constantly adding new features and changing its UI between platforms, but Google’s developers often leave red things untouched. Hot on the heels of a new major UI review, YouTube appears to be testing different colors for the video progress bar on its Android app, going for a desaturated look.
For the longest time, the video progress bar on Android, iOS, and desktop has been red, indicating progress with a light/dark gray line indicating the length of the unwatched video. On one of our apps running the latest YouTube beta, we noticed that the app was testing a white or gray filler that replaced the normal red color when watching YouTube. with black mode available (via 9to5Google).
However, touching the progress bar and interacting with the player in the control to jump between parts of a video will change the color to red. The progress red will return when the black mode is turned off and is not visible in landscape mode because the player will lose control after a few seconds. The colors don’t change anywhere else in the app, that is – the rest of the YouTube interface is bright red.
Since we only saw the color change on a single Android phone, this allowed for limited A/B testing for beta testers. We believe that Google has no intention of changing its color and visual identity, but it could be a change designed to make the app interface easier on the eyes in low light conditions, relying on monochrome elements instead of sharp colors. It may be a simple change to avoid red things that reduce the beauty of other decorations.
If this change is seen in a wider roll it is someone’s best guess.
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