Microsoft plans to begin rolling out a redesigned MSN.com on Wednesday in U.S., the first major update for the page in more than ten years.Regular visitors to the site will instantly notice one major change: The new page has only half the number of links as the old one. That's a sharp departure from the earlier design, which featured about 40 links on just the top third of the page and the site has also dropped the trademark blue background into a simpler white page.
The new design aims to address user feedback as well as complaints, said Erik Jorgenson, corporate vice president for MSN. Customers said they need a single site that is easy to use, he said. "What they don't like is too much clutter," he added. Users also said that they occasionally had a hard time finding what they were looking for, they were disappointed with search results prior to the launch of Bing, and they said the site had an outdated look and the feel.
Microsoft called Wednesday's launch a preview of the redesign, meaning it may come into view for some people immediately but will become commonly available in the New Year.
The site is now divided into just a handful of sections, lots of of which are fed information that might be personally related to the specific user.
For example, a box in the lower right corner of the home page includes three tabs: Windows Live, Facebook and Twitter. The Facebook tab shows a list of friends' current updates to Facebook and lets the user to update their Facebook status from the MSN page.
A box in the lower left corner of the page shows local weather, headlines and events. Clicking on the local link launches a new page, MSN Local Edition and that page uses Bing search to draw in local news and information. It will display more detailed weather information along with a local map where users can view traffic data. The site draws on users IP address to deliver local information to them.
Microsoft will also be testing out a version of the home page that makes use of Silverlight. That page won't launch Wednesday, however in the future people who have Silverlight installed might begin seeing the page. In the Silverlight version, clicking on the Twitter link, for instance, pops up a box where users can see updates as well as trending topics. About 50 percent of MSN.com users already have Silverlight, Jorgenson added.
Yahoo, Microsoft's biggest portal contender, also recently redesigned its home page, but with different results. The Yahoo page still includes a long list of links towards other pages and otherwise mainly features a list of links to news stories. Yahoo users be able to build themselves a customized page to include stock quotes, instant messaging, e-mail, weather, calendar and some other tools.
MSN will also still offer MyMSN, a customizable page; however Microsoft has found that not many people make use of it. "A large majority of users are not eager to put time into customizing and personalizing," Jorgenson added.
The latest design represents a change in thinking at MSN. "We have moved away from the days of being an Internet directory of everything to everyone," he added. As an alternative, MSN wants to deliver useful content across areas that it believes users find most important, Jorgenson added.
As many as 100 million people in the U.S. visit MSN.com each and every month, Microsoft added.
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