Yahoo News unveiled a redesign Thursday, promising a faster, more personalized experience for readers.
Unlike most website redesigns, the focus here was not on aesthetics -- in fact, the few visual differences are hard to detect, and it's possible that many regular readers won't notice any changes at first. Instead, they may notice over time that their feeds serve up news tailored to their reading preferences, based on their individual reading history. Yahoo also says it has improved page load time, though a spokesperson couldn't immediately say by how much.
The navigation on the site is still far from ideal: While it's plenty easy to navigate across sections on the left hand side, further down the page, users are prompted to switch between an "All News" feed and articles from Yahoo's individual partners, including ABC News and Reuters. Those placements are no doubt part of the agreements Yahoo has signed with its syndication partners, but they're not terribly useful for readers.
The redesign extends to smartphone and tablet devices, and will roll out to U.S. readers over the next couple of days, Mike Kerns, vice president of product at Yahoo, said in a blog post.
Yahoo News isn't the only Yahoo product to get a makeover: Yahoo's iPhone app, search and Flickr have all published redesigns in recent months.