Yahoo.com Reimagined
Challenge
As I was challenging myself to rethink Yahoo.com, two things really stood out as major problems. First, yahoo.com doesn't have a strong identity. If you take out the logo, it would look and work like the dozen of other portal sites out there. It pulls and links content from outside sources, but lacks interesting content created directly from them. Secondly, there's no consistency in the visual design and user experience. Try visiting the dating section, and it takes you to match.com. Try visiting jobs, and it takes you to monster.com. Try visiting any of the other sections, and it doesn't feel like Yahoo.com anymore. It's missing that special ingredient that makes Yahoo! ... well, what Yahoo! use to be.
Solution
In order for a Yahoo.com redesign to be successful, it needs to be unique from it's competitors (Google, Bing, AOL). It also needs to tap into users habbits and addictions. To achieve that, I've came up with a few solutions.
In order for a Yahoo.com redesign to be successful, it needs to be unique from it's competitors (Google, Bing, AOL). It also needs to tap into users habbits and addictions. To achieve that, I've came up with a few solutions.
(1) The focus should still be on search, but also entertainment. People come to yahoo to find things and also want to be entertained in the process. (2) Yahoo! needs to create custom content that's only available through their site. Such examples include character driven stories, daily shows with a unique twist, games, shopping deals, etc. (3) And finally, site-wide consistency and more visual content is crucial in keeping yahoo.com easy-to-use and visually intruiging. The designs below explain how it can be done.
