Reviewing: Yahoo! Home Page Beta

Reviewing: Yahoo! Front Page Beta
Slated for release: Early 2009
Review based on beta: As of November 2009

Visually, the top of the Yahoo! front page beta looks very odd, with the white clashing directly with the #637d90 color at the top-most part of the background gradient. This is a color contrast problem. Because of the background gradient, the #829cae 1-pixel border is noticeable on the lower part of the white content area, but not the top.

The shade of stormy blue in the background gradient doesn't really seem to match with the purple shade of the logo. In fact, the stormy blue sets a dimmer mood, and yet doesn't really hit the right color shade to feel professional or classy.

The site is also not using the purple favicon, and instead is still sporting the pixelated red Y! bang favicon they've been using for ages. This may seem trivial, but this is surprising because it seems like one of the easier tasks to implement, so it makes me wonder if it's an indication of a current lack of attention to detail.

And on the note of icons, the little icons under "Yahoo! Services" looks like pixel art, but that is fairly discontinuous with the slick icons used under "My Applications". Given that CSS sprites are being used, it wouldn't be much of a performance hit to use more modern icons. I hate to draw comparisons, but given that these are favicon-sized, see Google's favicons as examples. Those do not look like rudimentary pixel art.

I really want people to love what they see when they land on Y!'s new landing page. First impressions count, so I really want you guys to succeed and get it right the first time around. Make us proud!