I like the look better than the old one. Much cleaner.
But yikes! What's with the giant modal box covering the whole thing, demanding I bookmark the page? Why is it popping up full-page ads over the rest of the content because my mouse strayed over the links on the left?
Terrible.
Yahoo, if you're listening, here's my advice: Keep the design. It's pretty. Now strip out all the javascript from that page. Then I'd consider using it.
I don't understand Yahoo!'s focus, except that they own a large assortment of web properties (e.g. flickr, Yahoo! search etc.). I don't understand the positioning of the elements on the page and their relative importance. I don't understand the choice of the colour purple (very edgy, certainly not a majority favourite - ever seen people dress in purple??).
People are smart enough these days to know, who's the market leader in certain categories. The walled garden approach will not deter them from seeking out the best product just because Yahoo!'s own product is featured on their portal. This is essentially an early version Internet strategy, or the AOL approach, which will work for novice computer users, but as the population becomes more tech-savvy, will show ever diminishing results.
One strategy that IMHO makes sense to me surviving as a portal (aside from their web properties), is that of a personal aggregator, like netvibes, so the front page becomes a customized dashboard reflecting users interests.
I interned at Yahoo for two summers, but I worked in Break/Fix for the search clusters. I was no where near marketing.
As far as I could tell, non-tech-savvy users are their target audience... and there are way more of these people than you might think. Plus, Yahoo's finance property is pretty good.
Funny that you mention netvibes - I use it, but I use it as a glorified post-it note rather than a portal.
For 15 years, the way you open a new page of content is by clicking something. This interface breaks that expectation by following links as soon as you mouse over them. That is a terrible UI decision.
If I want to open one of those panels, I'll click on it. That's what I've been taught to do by every website I've ever visited. There is absolutely no reason to change such a valuable affordance. So don't.
I like it a lot better than the old one. They made a sensible and easier to navigate homepage while keeping the 'portal' concept at the forefront. Doubt this will turn the tide in their favor against competitors, but it is a good aesthetic step in the right direction. I also like the video they made for this http://cosmos.bcst.yahoo.com/up/player/popup/?cl=14758196 .
I will say this: they do things right. I added Dawdle as a site, and Dawdle search just did a site search on Dawdle for the search terms and kicked out Yahoo search results as good as Google's for each and every term I could think of. Now, if they could recognize that there's a search box and spit me out to Dawdle's SERP for my inputted search term, they'd get my homepage, no question.
Yahoo is my default homepage and for a while there has been a link in the corner to view the new design. I didn't click on that till now, since then my default homepage is the new design. Looks about the same as before to me. If they get rid if the zooming cars, flying birds and other zany nonsense ads I will probably just live with... or not... maybe its time to try a different home page, any suggestions?
Yahoo needs to try something new and different. No amount of rearranging tabs & links or switching fonts is going to make a bit of difference in the long run.
But yikes! What's with the giant modal box covering the whole thing, demanding I bookmark the page? Why is it popping up full-page ads over the rest of the content because my mouse strayed over the links on the left?
Terrible.
Yahoo, if you're listening, here's my advice: Keep the design. It's pretty. Now strip out all the javascript from that page. Then I'd consider using it.