Yes, I am talking about that MSN.com. The web site that has the blue background. The one with the text that’s way too small. The one that the only reason anybody ever has it as their home page is because they don’t know how to change it to something else.
That being the case, MSN’s upcoming changes are sure to get noticed. The logo changes both with the butterfly and font, the blue background is (finally) gone and said honestly the overall experience of using it is a whole lot better. Heck, you might even find it useful because we all know the current MSN just plain sucks.
Why does the current MSN.com suck? Because the design coddles to a bygone era where web designers were deathly afraid of making anybody scroll for anything, hence the stupid tiny text on the current MSN. There’s this ridiculous belief that if anybody has to scroll down for any content on your web site, you lose. This is only true if your content sucks. Scrolling down is not evil, never has been and never will be. If you’ve got something worth reading, the reader will happily scroll; there is nothing wrong with that.
What makes the new MSN.com a notable improvement?
Color coded organization:
This is a big deal and it’s not easy to pull off design-wise, but the new MSN makes it work. And when hovering over menus, a nice dotted border appears with menu choices below.
Tabs:
The blue "Games" in the screen shot above is an example of a tab in the new MSN interface. These are located in several areas and yes, they work well. Like with the top menu, some (but not all) tabs will have different colors compared to others.
Social connectivity:
Oh yes, it has it. The old-school Web 1.0 portal finally jumps into the modern age with Facebook and Twitter connectivity right from the same page. This is a really big deal because it gives people a reason to use MSN as their home page other than for just looks and information.
The beauty of the way it works is that the new MSN doesn’t shove you elsewhere, such as a "my.[web-service-here].com" just to get this feature. It’s on the home page right where it should be. That counts and counts huge. And YES, you can post status updates right from there as well for Facebook or Twitter. I tested it myself.
Microsoft said a few years back that they were going to put a huge effort into making their offerings modern. This started with Windows Live, then Bing and now MSN. I never thought I’d ever see MSN get out of Internet Stone Age, but it looks like it finally will – and do so in a way that truly will wow you and prove to be useful at the same time.
Posted In: Featured, Internet & The Web, PCMech Wire
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Not impressed
13. Nov, 2009
Can’t say I like the new design better than the old one. I dont like having to click a bunch of tabs to see all the headlines that would have displayed on the front page of the old design. And if I want to use facebook or twitter I will go to their websites.
Hate the New Design!
14. Nov, 2009
I’ve had MSN as my homepage for at least 10 yrs and I am so disgusted by the “upgrade” I am going to ditch them and try something new. Years ago, when they switched me to a watered-down Yahoo design, I deliberately switched back to the old blue MSN (by the way, I’m surprised a techie like you apparently failed to realize you can make the font size larger in the traditional version!) I prefer the contrast of the blue on the page; not having to click on tabs to navigate; and though I’m a Facebook user, I link to it directly from my desktop. The new page looks like a low-budget newsletter and is much less graphically appealing. MSN bombed on this one, sorry.
Lala
21. Nov, 2009
Ditto above poster. I hate the new design. Give me back my blue screen! :-/
HateIt
21. Nov, 2009
Are you kidding me?…you review this like it’s so great….I HATE it! It looks like junk and it’s really not user-friendly at all. Big mistake on MSN’s part.
Hlaktoong
29. Nov, 2009
Yes this thing smells to high heaven, but now I’ve made the choice to delete my msn desktop icon and now use the one for Google news and a seperate one for finances. These sites are great and they don’t have all the extra garbage that msn has been overloading with these past years. With this new setup I think that they have just thrown in the towel and will just make it a sham link scam to their Ho Hum bing search.
You can see they were doing that slowly all along as time went on so they can claim they are getting better hits than Yahoo & Google, which by the way is rolling out a new version after the new year and the beta was more accurate and slightly faster than the regular google. So just delete them from your life and I guarantee with in 2 weeks of useing others information sites
you will not miss them in the least. My message to MSN is KMA…….H
GoodbyeMSN
03. Dec, 2009
I had MSN set as my homepage for at least 5-7 years and they lost me within hours of the switch. I tried it for about an hour and it sucks. Goodbye MSN.
mirrorrim
14. Dec, 2009
“There’s this ridiculous belief that if anybody has to scroll down for any content on your web site, you lose. This is only true if your content sucks. Scrolling down is not evil, never has been and never will be. If you’ve got something worth reading, the reader will happily scroll; there is nothing wrong with that.”
Wrong, wrong, WRONG! MSN has never been my homepage, but I do navigate to the site every so often just to see if there’s something interesting to read. I loved the convenience of getting a glimpse of everything at once.
When I received the unfortunate downgrade to the new msn homepage, instead of a tidy glimpse at the news and major headlines in a clear format, now it’s all over the place in discombobulated little boxes of info spread around advertisements and giant pictures. NO I will not scroll around to map out some kind of structure of what the hell I’m looking at.
It reminds me of one of those cheap webpages you land on when you accidentally click some ad or spam link. Guess it’s officially time to change my every-so-often visits to never-visiting-again.
(and btw, I’m a computer-savvy, 24 yr old who has a facebook account. so you cant lump me into one of those “people who just cant figure out how to change the homepage and therefore have grown used to the blue design and are basically computer dumbos whose opinion doesnt count.”
Ben
05. Jan, 2010
I’m sorry but I HATE HATE HATE the white background. The blue background was far more easy on the eyes. Also, I’m quite familiar with changing home pages as well.
Ree
02. Feb, 2010
Is there any way to get the old (blue) screen back? If anyone finds out, please post it. I don’t like the new screen. Not impressed at all
Truth
05. Feb, 2010
This guy must work for MSN. Everyone else hates the redesign.
Rich Menga
06. Feb, 2010
That would be a no. If I did, it probably wouldn’t have been a good idea to leave all the above comments stated by those who hate it.