Ok, "Hate" is a strong word, but it does mean "don't like," right? And I don't like it. It's not like I'm apathetic to it. I really feel strongly that it sucks.
I've been using Yahoo! for a long time now. I found its format to be the best when it came to showcasing headlines and features I'd like to read. It was great. I was so addicted, I would spend hours of my day reading its featured stories and playing its games. (The games page is fine - they didn't change that, thank goodness!) But the usual home page sucks! (Yes, I know I've already said that). What are they trying to do? Be like Facebook? There's just too much stuff and too much white space around that stuff. It's so distracting. I can't focus on a single element of the page like I used to. Now it's all one big jumbled mess.
And to top it off, their menu list on the side is so irritating now. Just scrolling over the list, it will pop up a tab (that has to load) with more on that topic - like a list of news articles, log on access, or search bar. WTF! If I want to learn more about that topic, I'll click on the link and open a new page. But having it load right there - and be so much smaller to read - is just too much clutter. They're an irritating imposition. You have to wait for them to load. It's annoying! Especially if your mouse just accidentally slid over the link and you have to wait while it loads a tab you didn't even want to open.
I suppose they were trying to make this page people's default home page by making it possible to do everything from it. But it's just too much. Did they not test this on users before they released it?
I guess they did give me fair warning. I kept the old home page for a few months now, and I was happy with it. Even when they said they would change the page, I thought, "Fine, I'll accept it when it happens." Well, it's happened and I hate it. And I must say, in my defense, that I have been with Yahoo! through many metamorphoses of its home page and I have stuck with it, because in all those times, it still managed to be user-friendly and aesthetically pleasing. What happened?! Did they give the job of reformatting it to a couple of young college grads because they thought they were hip, but who turned out to know nothing about aesthetics? It's so annoying.
And I thought that maybe I would get some relief from the familiarity of MSN's home page, only to find that they have changed their home page as well! And strangely enough, their change is almost identical to Yahoo! in the increase of white space. It's not quite as annoying as Yahoo!'s for me, but maybe that's only because I only use MSN's incidentally. But it has my same critique of there being too much white space. Way too much. I can hardly focus on each category because the amount of white space is so overwhelming. People don't need this much white space unless they're in mental institutions.
Why is it that these companies that have a solid base of loyal customers start all over in the attempts of luring new customers while throwing a pie in the face of their old ones? (Hello, Windows Vista anyone?) Can they not merge the two aspects, combine old and new so that old customers have some features which give them the familiarity they like and new customers can be enticed by new improvements? I guess not. :(
Aargh! Every time I look at the page it annoys me. And yet by habit I still look at it. Although to Yahoo!'s chagrin, perhaps, I barely look at it as much as I used to. It's too irritating. I guess that's a good thing for me because I was considering that I spent too much time reading stories on there. Now with this change, I really don't feel like being on their page if I can help it.
Having said that I guess I should reiterate my stance that people are allowed to try new things (and fail). How else do you know if it will work or not unless you try it out? Yes, so they tried this and hopefully they will try something else - really really soon.
In the meantime, I guess that just gives me more time to write on my blog. Whoopee!
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