User blog comment:Rupert Giles/Global Navigation January Update/@comment-28736347-20150131142035/@comment-452-20150131180628

I have noticed a tendency recently for many sites to not have placeholder text in their search boxes.

I personally find blank search boxes harder to locate - not so much of a problem with huge-search-bar-at-top-of-page deals, but I still think "blank by default" is a bad design choice.

Youtube, for example, currently doesn't - I don't know if they ever did. But the difference with youtube and google is that they are search-centric sites, and the search bar is focused by default, so there's no need for the user to "look" for the search bar.


 * Q: "Can we do that with this too?"
 * A: Not currently.