Ummm…have you guys seen the “new” AOL beta site?
Ok here is the deal; AOL has launched a “new” beta design of their website for testing and feedback; however, after examination, this page does not look very new. In fact, it does not look new at all.
Ok here is the deal; AOL (111 million unique users per day – source) has launched a “new” beta design of their website for testing and feedback; however, after examination, this page does not look very new. In fact, it does not look new at all.
Take a look below (click on the image to enlarge) and you will see what I mean.
I understand people complaining about Web 2.0 practices, and how it makes newly designed websites look somehow the same (which I do not agree to), however, it does not need a designer to tell that what AOL has done extends that, it is almost an exact replica of Yahoo’s homepage design.
I wonder how much research was done, how much budget was allocated, and how many experts it took in AOL for this new beta initiative. It is strange to believe that nobody in the team involved has seen Yahoo!, or even seen the resemblance between both designs. I would like to find out the code name of the project as well, “Yahoo You” sounds very suitable.
Ideally, the point of the re design is to keep AOL a competitive portal, but what we’ve seen so far will not only bring zero new users to AOL, it will also result in losing existing AOL users to other portals like Yahoo! Or MSN.
It is good to take inspiration from good designs, or learn from good practices across the web, but for a famous, huge, portals network to copy competition, I believe it is shame.
AOL, please reconsider while you still can.
