Google Image Search is getting badges to denote relevant actions so that when you search for anything using Google Image Search, if there is anything else for you to discover that pertains to a particular picture in the results, you can tap on the image to reveal the details that are associated with it. This could be for anything from recipes to shopping, so if you do a search for images of pizza, if there’s a recipe associated with one of the images there will be a badge in the bottom left corner that tells you a recipe is available. Tapping on the image will reveal the recipe and all instructions so you can get to making it instead of just enjoying how good the pizza looks in the image.
Badges won’t just be for highlighting when a recipe is available. There will be badges for highlighting if the image is associated with a video as well, and tapping it will allow you to access the video for playback. There could also be badges for GIFs. Google notes that these new badges will be showing up in the Google app on Android devices but it makes no mention of them showing up in the Google app for iOS. However, it does state that the badges will show up on the mobile web as well, so anyone doing a search for images using Google Image Search in their phone’s browser should be able to see these pop up when they’re available.
Badges don’t appear to be showing up just yet in the Google app or on the mobile web, and Google makes no mention of when the new badges should start appearing for users, though it’s worth mentioning that the badges could already be showing up for some and not others. The examples for badges listed by Google are just a few of the possible options for badges that may show up depending on the type of item that you’re searching for, so you may stumble upon more badges randomly. To bring up relevant additional details or actions following an image search, you also tap on the image itself and not the badge. While it’s just as easy to look up a recipe for cupcakes or any other type of food, having the badges tell you when recipes are available allows you to search for things that you may visually like the look of and then attempt to make a recipe based on that instead going for a recipe that sounds good. This should also get more users to check out image search more often as pictures will provide more interaction and things like recipes are in-line, meaning you won’t be taken to a separate page to see the recipe instructions, rather the image will simply expand into a longer card with the recipe instructions right below it.