I think, and I stress that this is wrought of my own unprofessional feelings, but I think that in the early days of rich consumer UI (pre-2004 lets say), that rounded corners, gradients and shadows did some great things to design, because they created affordances so that people knew, for instance, that a button was a button. It stood out against the other website clutter and cruft.
But we've sort of moved on. I'm reminded of a Doisneau quote (famous photographer, 1912-1994):
> "Nowadays people's visual imagination is so much more sophisticated, so much more developed, particularly in young people, that now you can make an image which just slightly suggests something, they can make of it what they will."
Nowaday's peoples visual expectations of what they might find on a website or app are much better, and you don't need to "point out" as much stuff. In other words I think users "got better". At the same time, we seem to see a real slimming of other visual distractions, so buttons don't need to be pointed-out as much.
This is the essence of Flat-UI in my opinion, that if you remove enough cruft, then afterwards you can remove even more cruft since your buttons and menus will no longer need to stand out from other stuff with gradients/shadows/rounded corners, and users are more attending to looking for them and expecting them anyway.
And I think, in light of all that, Yahoo sort of dropped the ball here. They didn't remove the cruft! Distractions distractions distractions.
Microsoft is the worst culprit here - presenting a text block containing some hyperlinks, but the text is all styled identically so you have to hover the mouse over a word to notice the link. WTF?
Sure, let's keep things clean and minimal, but there needs to be some kind of basic visual language that indicates "this bit is interactive, and this other bit is static content".
Somewhere, Jakob Nielsen is having an aneurysm.
Affordance of hyperlinks is key to the Web.
I apply the following CSS to most/many sites to identify links:
a {
color: #427fed;
text-decoration: none;
};
a:active {
background-color: #427fed;
color: #fffff6;
};
a:hover {
text-decoration: underline;
}
As a brand Yahoo! has always been far from the edge of visual innovation. I once worked on a pitch for Yahoo! long ago, and it seems to me that the angle is still the same: predictable and dated. I'd say there's no reason to ask for more. If anything, they're probably giving their users what they want.
Like? You didn't even mention one example.
Talk for yourself buddy. I hate most UIs being pushed nowadays, including ones from Google (G+ is a usability trainwreck) and Apple (iOS7... enough said).
It looks like I'm not alone...
1) It's original. At least, it seems original relative to its competitors. They are borrowing the well-accepted design language of their Weather app (which was critically acclaimed in relevant circles, I believe - like won some kind of award), and assimilated it across their web properties.
Contrary to what other's have said, I don't find the text hard to read. Instead, due to the novelty and aesthetic of the design, I am drawn to stay. It's a nice refresh.
2) It's cohesive. This design language has been consistently ported across its properties without making it constricting. Yahoo Sports is functionally distinct from Yahoo Movies, but blended together by the same aesthetic.
This began with Yahoo silently porting its top bar across its properties (with the search feature ubiquitous across all constituent sites). This final piece was missing and is just another step closer to bringing Yahoo together.
So no, I don't think the designs are cluttered, or that they hide/confuse information, or that Yahoo is copying the fad. I think they are paving their path, boldly, and it should yield some interesting results.
Also, why doesn't the blog announcement link to the actual sites???
It's actually causing me great physical discomfort to use these new sites.
I have hated almost every yahoo redesign.
This one I liked. It's kind of cute.
I'm not saying there aren't people for whom this strategy doesn't apply -- some call them the "Oh, I don't own a television" crowd -- but it's certainly not just a generational thing.
Edit: If you built a browser aimed at the masses you should just title it "The Newest Internet" or "Get a Faster and More Secured Internet," rather than "Faster and More Secured Browser."
I'll take this over the "huge text" startup-style any day.
The bigger issue to me is none of these sites are particularly responsive. They all have a huge background but small areas for content and huge waste of space on larger monitors. To be honest, I think should've had a bolder re-design with a greater emphasis on editorialization instead of a standardized layout across sections.
It's the placement of entertainment and sports as the top items on the page.
I don't particularly care what your site presentation is (OK, I lied, I do: it should be simple, out of my face, and distraction-free), but if you show contempt and insult me with your content, I'm gone and never coming back.
Do they have any impact on my life? Other than local events impacting my commute: no.
Do they improve me? With the selections Yahoo chooses? Not at all.
Is this information/content I can't get a a bazillion other viral sites? No.
Differentiate. Lead with your strength.
Even going to Yahoo News rather than Yahoo changes the story only very slightly.
Perhaps this will enlighten you: http://onion.com/14yzeCq
Yahoo's logo was iconic, this is gimmicky.