April 4, 2010 by Andre
2010 has been a year of major change so far, many of the internet’s most well known and well used sites have undergone some sort of re-design, Google owned video streaming site YouTube has picked up the baton and continued the trend this week.
After entering the beta stage more than 2 months ago YouTube have finally made the revamp live and available to all its users. The new look video hosting site appears to be a lot more minimalist and streamlined, it comes after more than a year of planning and deliberation to get it right.
Google, owners of YouTube, have stated that the all new site serves 2 main purposes: The first was to provide a much cleaner user interface that, according to YouTube, is more subdued and a lot simpler than before. Secondly, it was designed to improve the ‘stickiness’ of the site, offering more video suggestions on a single page with the view of users staying on the site for lengthier periods.
The changes do appear to be quite subtle, none of them severely disrupt the user, but anyone that is a YouTube diehard is likely to notice them straight away.
Other, less significant changes include better search integration that will allow users to perform a video search whilst watching another video, a great change for any multitasking YouTube users out there.
A new ratings system has also been deployed, instead of the old 1-5 star rating, YouTube have gone with the Facebookesque like or dislike buttons which seems like an overall metaphor for how users will feel about these new changes.
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