Yahoo! is previewing a new home page this morning. You can view the beta page here. Yahoo! is also releasing an enhanced new My Yahoo! service as well. Learn what's new.
Read on for my initial impressions. Somehow I've managed to scoop the mighty Unofficial Yahoo! Weblog run by Weblogs Inc.
Initial impressions on the new Y! Home Page:
+ Overall, the new home page has a cleaner look with the appearance of more white space. This illusion is helped by making the search box wider, changing links so they are only underlined on hover, making all the search tabs white until selected, and tweaking the six button graphics.
+ Ability for Y! users to control which services are featured on one click buttons is great. Y! automatically selects them based on your usage patterns (smart) and you can override them if you choose.
+ Y! has abandoned its attempt to categorize its services into categories (Shop, Find, Connect, Organize, Info) and has simply listed them in alphabetical order.
+ Weather information for your ZIP code is now featured on the front page, though below an ad block and the news headlines.
- The Personal Assistant box on the top right of the page has disappeared. I especially miss its link to Y! Calendar. The Mail and Address links has been moved to a very subtle place on the left and a Compose link has replaced the Calendar.
- Unlike MSN, Y! continues to list its services in multiple columns, which I find harder to scan than MSN's left column.
- Some of the services I most use (Calendar, Briefcase, etc.) are no longer listed above the fold which means more scrolling to the bottom of the page where they are in a catch-all "More Y! Services" area.
- Signout link is now obscurely tucked in next to the "Hi,
- I miss the angled title bars on the portlets (In the News for example). The new design has a full colored title bar which I think results in a heavier, busier look.
- While the home page may look new, selecting any link dumps you onto the same old non-updated spartan Y! Finance site, etc. Yahoo! really needs to work on upgrading the look and feel of its entire service because some areas (notably revenue-producers such as Y! Personals) have a pretty new treatment and others are still rather clunky.
Conclusion:
While the page looks cleaner at first blush, the further down you go, the more cluttered it feels. The top design clearly pays homage to the minimalism of Google. The rest of the page is generally lacking in inspired design. MSN's current home page continues to be "prettier" than this new Y! beta with better use of color, dynamic photomontages for the lead story block and white backgrounds (I really don't like the purple screen on the News box and much of the right column on Y!'s design -- as an aside, I've NEVER understood why Yahoo!, which has such a strong RED Y! logo, continues to believe that its corporate colors should be PURPLE and GOLD -- someone please enlighten me...). MSN's link list is still faster to scan (though I have never liked how don't distinguish between content and commerce links). On balance, it is an evolutionary update that upgrades the general look but breaks a few things I have always liked about the current design.
Initial impressions on the new My Yahoo!: (forthcoming)
+ RSS support (which has been an on-again, off-again service since January) has now gone live
+ The pages now look much more modern a la MSN and the editing appears to be much simpler so I would expect adoption to increase. It still isn't quite drag-n-drop easy like on MSN.
