YouTube begins testing old-school video layout design

YouTube has begun testing a new video layout for the website, and it features some design aspects from the platform’s beginnings.

Since shortly after its launch in 2005, YouTube has been the premier site for users to share and consume video content on the internet.

It’s gone through quite a few design changes over the last almost 20 years, and YouTube has been working on a new design that they’ve begun rolling out to a handful of users.

Screenshots of the updated website have made their way to social media, garnering quite the reaction from others.

“Twenty years of ‘in the description box down below’ on YouTube, gone! I don’t think I’ll get used to ‘smash that like button to the right of the video’ anytime soon,” said Brian Hamilton on Threads.

Threads: @_brianhamilton

The redesign shows the user’s video description and channel information on the right side of the video, which is quite a big change from how it’s been over the last decade.

Plenty of users flocked to the comments on Brian’s post to share their thoughts, but others mentioned that this design isn’t new to the website. Back in 2006-2010, YouTube had the user’s information on the right side of the video.

I went to Wayback Machine to confirm this using one of Ray William Johnson’s original videos and confirmed that was true in 2009-2010.

YouTube clarified in a post about the redesign on Twitter/X that it is, in fact, an experimental feature that is available to limited accounts.

“Jumping in! it sounds like you’re seeing an experiment/test feature. diff teams at YouTube often test new ways to improve features & experiences,” they said.