After a backlash last week following a redesign of the site, Bit.ly announced Wednesday it has made some tweaks to make its beloved URL-shortening feature more prominent.
Now the box to shorten your link reads "Paste a link here" instead of "Add a bitmark." Once the link is pasted, it's automatically saved. Just click "copy" and you're good to go.
That's one step less than the original re-designed version, and more in line with the simplicity that made the site and service a hit.
Last week's redesign, the company hoped, would make the site more social. But response from users, on Twitter and in Bit.ly's own comments section, was almost universally negative.
The problem? The go-to site for shortening URLs (mostly to fit into Twitter's 140-character limit) became so bloated and confusingly designed, it wasn't clear where the link-shortening function was located. And it took more clicks once you found it.
Originally, Bit.ly was a bare-bones site. It offered a box to enter your URL. You clicked shorten, and boom -- it was shortened and automatically copied. With the new design, this function was in a tiny area in the top right of the screen where you entered your link. Then a window would pop-up and you could "save" the bit.ly link and then copy.
The site is still not as clean as it first was, but it's clear where you can shorten links.
Bit.ly writes: "We mean it when we say we’ve been reading all your tweets and emails. And we’re listening! In the week since our release, we’re already making adjustments, so that saving and shortening links in the new bitly is a whole lot easier."