Ok, I have seen the posts everywhere and actually been in two longish conversations today about Yahoo’s redesign: it is time to come clean… I am a closet Yahoo lover.

I like tons of information on a page and I love when it is laid out as well as Yahoo. I even like the color blue and have been known to scream a jubilant “yahooOOOooo.”

Yahoo’s redesign is both good, period, and also good for all of us web designers.

It points to a trend in design and usability that is an improvement over the past in several substantive ways.

I can remember way back in circa 1997 being asked by a client, “If your designs with all those pictures are so good, why does yahoo get all the traffic?”

My answer then is the same as now: “This is comparing apples and oranges, Yahoo is an odd beast, very few people are trying to BE Yahoo… that is, you, client, have tons of competition and we are trying to define your brand.”

Yahoo used to look almost as barebones as Google, back when it thought it was a directory to the web. And so it was a tough sell to tell your yahoo-loving client that a design-heavy look would be better for their brand. Similarly, I have a client who offers a database to their clientele, and they wondered, legitimately, why their site shouldn’t look like Google. The answer is identical. You shouldn’t look like google or yahoo because you are NOT yahoo or google: not size-wise, in terms of offerings, or in terms of your target audience. But still, the question comes up.

What should a content heavy page look like?
Yahoo is a bit of a bellwether for a certain kind of super dense site. Examples of this kind of site abound. The recent redesign of the New York Times, I will admit, dismayed me. I can’t understand why the NYT home page is SO BIG, and seems to repeat itself in a variety of ways. Is that for SEO? Is it really more usable to repeat info more than three times? Yahoo is a content aggregator and solutions provider, and sure it is much more besides, but it has never felt as dense as the front page of the new NYT feels now.

So Yahoo has taken the plunge and amid quite a bit of criticism has made several large changes.

Let’s look at them in detail:

1st
For those who haven’t geeked out on this yet, the news is that Yahoo has gone through the first redesign in about a decade – it is a good design – and this actually matters. View it here: http://www.yahoo.com/

2nd
Yahoo’s effort is no small redesign. Here is a short history of previous designs to enjoy:

1996 - http://web.archive.org/web/19961017235908/http://www2.yahoo.com/
1997 - http://web.archive.org/web/19970124192912/http://www10.yahoo.com/
1998 - http://web.archive.org/web/19980213144649/http://www10.yahoo.com/
1999 - http://web.archive.org/web/19990117053926/http://yahoo.com/
2000 - http://web.archive.org/web/20000229153143/http://www.yahoo.com/
2001 - http://web.archive.org/web/20010301043713/http://www.yahoo.com/
2002 - http://web.archive.org/web/20020125094044/http://www.yahoo.com/
2003 - http://web.archive.org/web/20030127104212/www.yahoo.com/
2004 - http://web.archive.org/web/20040107110128/http://www.yahoo.com/
2005 - http://web.archive.org/web/20050112132622/http://www.yahoo.com/
2006 - http://www.yahoo.com/?p=1147815127
Today - http://www.yahoo.com/newyahoo

This is one of the world’s most popular sites, and as you can see from the links above this is a pretty dramatic change. A change towards a more designed, smooth feel, with more graphics overhead and more interactivity and, I think, better usability.

3rd
The content is different on the new page. Overall, there are probably five content trends worth noting here:

a) Where is yahoo’s famed directory? Yeah, it is gone and boy I don’t miss it.
b) Multimedia content has been something of a staple for msn, aol, netscape, Comcast, etc. Now Yahoo jumps on board.
c) ADVERTISING! Rich media advertising! Wow, how the mighty have fallen, I wonder how low the share price had to go before ads on the front page became a consideration.
d) News, community, and yahoo pulse, which I suppose aggregates popular things and shows us how the lemmings are doing it.
e) Personalization

But wait, you say, how is any of this different, we’ve all seen this before. It isn’t different, per se, it is just different for yahoo’s home page. It is just fascinating that one of the biggest content aggregators on the planet is choosing these areas to change and highlight.

4th
Technology is different, improved. Interface technology has improved dramatically in the last five years, and the use of Ajax and a bunch of client-side solutions such as tabbed panes shows that yahoo has been paying attention.

5th
Usability has improved. The personal area offers weather/mail/movies, etc. It is personalized by location and offers individual-specific content. The nifty frame expansion provides a ton of info without need for diving into sub-pages or a hierarchy. The front page recognizes me, and recalls my preferences making it easier to find things (which is both years old and way overdue). The coolest usability improvement is making every block of text clickable, everywhere. Really, there is no need for any kind of mouse precision on this page, EVERYTHING is one big button.

6th
Design design design. Someone at yahoo must get paid the very big bucks for thinking about how best to differentiate content that is side by side, because it is done awfully well on their new page. There is far less scrolling, content is placed within AJAX-tabs that hides and reveals it very responsively. All of these touches makes the page seem more digestible. Configurability includes the ability to change the vertical nav into a directory-like box and squinch the site into a more easily viewed, narrower, but longer, column. The page is easier o the eyes, with fewer bold or contrasting colors, yet it still retains intense contrast. The color chooser, while gratuitous, is fun and I was impressed by how different the site ends up looking with a different palette.

Finally, to summarize:

Most distinctly, it seems the new home page is a powerful place for advertising. That is new, and not all that bad.

The interactivity is snappy, there is immediate responsiveness and the site feels FAST.

This design is a triumph of articulated content. Long live labels, headings, tabs, cues, and design conventions that teach the user to KNOW where to go.

So that is my rant.
What do you think?