New Yahoo Home Page Features | Yahoo New HomePage Screenshots

New Yahoo Home Page Features and Screenshots

Yahoo.com is world’s most visited page, but now Yahoo (YHOO) launched a re-design of its homepage late last month. "This new launch represents the most important change to our homepage since the company’s beginning", said by Yahoo. In new home the main logo  "Yahoo" is changed and shown in left side comparing to old design.

The main difference from the current Yahoo home page is that users can now customize the page with widgets/apps from third parties. Here is a look at the new design:

Overview of new features:

New look for the most visited website in the world, Yahoo.com marks a significant. To make the Yahoo homepage more interactive, there is plenty of Ajax magic and Yahoo has made a big attempt to make the user the primary focus of the new homepage.

In today’s web it has a bigger search box, in credit of the big role that the search border plays. On personalization, news content and community, there is also more importance for the users. If you will visit the home page of yahoo, you are welcomed with a banner that shows just how important personalization is to this re-design: "Welcome to the all-new Yahoo!"

More multimedia links and content has been added by yahoo.com home page. The most noticeable feature is an increased use of Ajax in the new layout as a design point of view. Also the page is wider, recognizing that the average PC monitor size has increased over the past few years (there is an option to switch to a "narrow page").

On the home page there is more use of tabs too including the chart design employs the famous web 2.0 techniques of faded colors. Some of the scaling challenges of implementing Ajax in a mass market website explained by VP of Front Doors Tapan Bhat in the podcast. Before it was ready for prime time, he made it clear that the move to a more Ajax-heavy user interface required a lot of testing and optimization. For an example of the Ajax touches, check out the "Personal Assistant" in the top-right corner.

The new features of Yahoo.com (Home page) are:

Personal Assistant:
 
Recent messages from Yahoo! Mail, an online friends list from Yahoo! Messenger displays by a new "personal preview area" and also shows radio and movies, weather, traffic and events from Yahoo! Local.

Yahoo! Pulse:
In the home page, this is new section and facilitates people to find out "what's hot on the Web". It also enables for the most popular and interesting Yahoo! searches; the latest trends; popular music, videos, photos, people and opinions. Yahoo! collected all of their user-generated content and filtering to get the most popular items - e.g. Interesting Flicker Photos, or Most popular cars, or Top Music Videos.

News Content:
Yahoo! will emphasize feature stories, entertainment news, sports and finance content, plus the latest national, world and video news on this News Content. Yahoo's home page editors specially selected these news item and update so this is really human-powered 'professional' content. In the new yahoo.com webpage, this section of content occupies a prime top-left spot, which is a suggestion of how focused Yahoo is on media content these days.

Enhanced Search Box:

On the new Yahoo! home page, the most re-designed that Yahoo! Search box has been made bigger and positioned more prominently. Also you will note Yahoo! Answers just under the Yahoo! Search box.

Re-designed Navigation:

On the Yahoo! home page, it always has a lot of navigation elements, as the most popular portal on the planet reflecting its history and reputation. As the left navigation makes Yahoo's product options stand out more, the new design is absolutely an improvement to my mind. To attracting the user's attention, generally impression is of a less messy interface, with content occupying the center of the page. The navigation dominated the whole of the page, in the old design.

Customization options:

Users can customize colors and layout using the 'Page Options' button.

MyYahoo and Personalized Start Pages:

My Yahoo is Yahoo's "personalized start page" so it most important that how the new yahoo.com design complements. Still, Yahoo.com is extremely a typical 'portal', but it now makes more use of web 2.0 functionality like the 'collective intelligence' evident in Y! Pulse. With features like Personal Assistant, the new yahoo.com also has personalization in it.

Conclusion:

In terms of both 'look n feel' and functionality, I think the new Yahoo.com preview page (HomePage) is a big development on the old design. The new design is a big step forward because yahoo.com is the most visited webpage in the world. Yahoo introduces a decent slab of 'web 2.0' functionality to the masses. What do you think?