Experimental aesthetic change to Google+ navigation menu

A small number of users are seeing a minor change to the aesthetics of the Google+ navigation menu on the desktop web, which adds 100% more button.

The change that some users are seeing, adds a 1px grey line around the name of the feature that the user is viewing, making the menu look more of a button.

Here's the new version:

And for your reference, the old style:

You may also notice that the arrow is pointing down, unlike the current (or old, if you prefer) which points to the right. As of now, this has no change to the way the menu slides out, or any of the look and feel to the navigation menu, strangely enough. I suspect that if or when the change is made public, the button will act more like it is suggesting, sliding the menu down when pressed or rolled over with a cursor. But that's just speculation for now.

The new look in the condensed view

+Clayton Pritchard asked members in our Google+ Updates community who is seeing the change, and as of posting, only 7 people in our community is seeing the change, and 46 people reporting no change. So that makes me feel lucky being part of the experiment, but I wonder how long it'll be until I'm part of the "normal" crowd again. This shows that the Google+ team are, to put it in Walter Whites' (from Breaking Bad) words, "treading lightly" when it comes to testing changes, even ones as small as this.

The new-look button on the Local page

The change was first spotted and reported by active Google+ Updates community member, +Nure Alam Masud. Thanks Nure for the tip!

Are you seeing this? If so, do you want it to stick around or do you prefer the more streamlined look that we've had since the redesign debuted on May 15th? Let us know your thoughts in the comments.