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I can not think of a single Yahoo! redesign that I have liked so far. I use Yahoo! Mail hourly, and couldn’t work with the beta, and switched back to the old version, despite its drawbacks. I am subscribed to several Yahoo! Groups (in fact, I’m starting a new one today), but the new interface makes me uncomfortable; I find myself longing for the older, clunkier, clearer UI.

The same goes for the new Yahoo! Finance; I’ve got a good deal of my portfolio, along with stuff I watch, in Yahoo Finance, and with the new version, it took my a few minutes to figure out where all this information went! It used to be right in front of me, now it’s buried under and AJAX/Javascript drop down menu. I’ll still use it, for the same reason I use all of Yahoo’s other apps (they have pretty much everything I need, in one place), but I’m growing more and more uncomfortable with the UI. AJAX is good and all, as long as it helps me do more stuff better; but when it’s getting in my way, you might as well forget it.

(When someone from Yahoo reads this - ‘cuz I know you will - please don’t take this in a bad way; I love Yahoo and really want to see it succeed, which is why I’m offering my criticisms).

Here’s a quick screenshot:

There’s duplicate information (the dates), prominence given to ratings that are barely used (instead, show it when it contains information), and the usernames are truncated (which, if you’re an avid Yahoo Finance Message Board denizen, you will know is vital information to have in front of your when considering the value of a post). Plus, it reminds me of Yahoo Groups.

This entry was posted on Monday, July 17th, 2006 at 10:17 am and is filed under AJAX, Web 2.0, Web Design. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.