The Soon-To-Be New MSN.com

by Rich Menga on Nov 4, 2009 | 31 comments

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.

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Not impressed
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!
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
Ditto above poster. I hate the new design. Give me back my blue screen! :-/
HateIt
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
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
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
“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
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
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
This guy must work for MSN. Everyone else hates the redesign.

http://www.menga.net Rich Menga
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.

Joe
I have been using MSN as my homepage for over 5 years.With these absolutely horrendous change I will be going elsewhere.Give me back the blue background where all the important headlines were right there for me to see.
Monica
This new page is awful! Does anyone know how we write msn directly about this? I’ve had a hotmail account forever, and it was nice to check out the headlines, horoscope whatever, before signing in my email. I agree the white background is cheap looking, the whole design looks like they farmed the work out to a beginning designer still in school.
Alice
I agree with basically everyone else who have commented before me. This looks too much like it’s trying to be yahoo. and i have to go to new tabs and pages to see what i could of seen just on one page. i don’t think it’s a matter of people not being able to deal with change. i think it’s a matter of how convenient the old page was, everything i wanted to know was there on one page, most of the time i didn’t even have to scroll down. the new version just makes it look like the pictures and info were just copy and pasted to a blank word document and it’s confusing because everything runs together, ya there’s headers for a new section but all it is is a font that is no bigger than every other text on the page and blue lines underneath it. wow… that really caught my eye… i have not decided whether or not i’m going to change homepages because msn has good information and news but i don’t want to dig for that information

Alice
Or atleast provide an alternative or a way for those of us who prefer the original msn to switch back.

Pennyman
Why do people think newer is always better?
Dave
This new home page was thrust on me without my consent. I am trying to get a new email address so I don’t have to look at this ugly home page
Dave
YES I read the prior, give me back my old MSN home page and fire the person who thought this up
f***msn.com
Screw msn.com. Same as everyone else who commented here. Been using their homepage for years. Not any more..
larry p
This new MSN.com SUCKS!!!! How do I get the old back?
I will never use this..I will switch and never come back…get
me back to the original version….
Bob
To go back type in (My.MSN.com) and you will get a page just like the old blue page you liked so much.
lg
I hate the new site- so much that if they do change it, all of my hotmail email addresses will go to yahoo. I can’t stand the new site.
Craig
You used to be able to clear your cache and get the old page back. Not anymore, it looks like we will be stuck with this crap until they lose enough traffic to get some sense. I’m looking for a new homepage, but I am dreading changing my hotmail address.
Anyone found a new homepage to suggest?
DEBRA K LANCE
I HATE THE NEW MSN, WE SHOULD BE ABLE TO CHOSE IF WE WANT THE NEW OR STAY WITH THE OLD.
nunya business
You are as bad as the idiots at msn that did this in the first place. If you can look at that moronic scribbling and think it’s an improvement, then you aren’t taking the right pills. Screw msn. I’m tired of being told that I don’t know what I like, and some design school drop out knows better than me. Clearly I’m not the only one that sees that this is utter crap.
raymond leclair
i just read the above 25 responses concerning the “new” msn.com website! i agree with all the negative responses and would rather have the “blue background” older version! i do not like this “new” one at all! thank you for listening!
amhbgh
HATE the new website. Have had MSN set as my homepage for over 10 years and I switched within hours. Hate having to go through all the tabs to find what I want. Good one MSN, what makes you think there was anything (except bing), wrong with the old version.