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YouTube users choke on latest redesign


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New home page meets with howls of protest

YouTube has redesigned its home page and added new functionality, much to the dismay of its users.

The company announced the updates in a blog post, saying that the changes are about going "back to the basics".

YouTube software engineer Igor Kofman and product manager Shiva Rajaraman claimed that the idea was to focus attention on "the reason why you came to YouTube in the first place - the video - and all the ways you engage with content and creators".

The update means that users can make changes to the size of the video screen, and YouTube has replaced the five star ratings model with a likes/dislikes system.

The company has also moved the content description to below the video in order to reduce the clutter on the right, where users are given a choice of videos to watch.

Comments have been given a new highlights view which summarises the best discussions and increases the incentives for creators to communicate with their audiences, according to YouTube.

The redesign has been in progress since the beginning of last year, and YouTube announced a test version of the streamlined video page in January for users to explore. Many of the comments made at the time were negative, and this sentiment appears to have continued.

"IDK, why'd you change it all of a sudden? I know for a while you had a beta on this. Surely the people said 'don't go along with it! keep the old one' and not 'change it anyway'," said YouTube user 'Richard'.

Another user called 'Maciek' added: "Too minimalistic, please make an option for those who want to use the old version."

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I have to say I agree (with the article), I do not like the new layout at all :(

At April 1st I first saw it and I supposed it was a joke and would leave, but it stayed!

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What's different again.. it looks like it is better on loading.. but really.. don't see that big of a change.. I had seen some concepts upon Deviantart.. but they look much better than it does now.. or did before..

I don't really hit the site enough to care anyway..but if its faster then go for it..

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Text mode is cool. Other changes aren't very visible. When I visited site at 1 april I didn't noticed changes ;) I needed a sec to see they moved some stuff somewhere else etc. Except text mode all other things it's totally minor changes. I thought that changes will be huge when google announced it but I was disapointed.

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I use Youtube all the time so I really notice all the changes. The new layout is much less functional (and ugly and cliche IMO). They bastardized the star system which was being abused but why penalize liking a video? Liking a video now adds it to your likes/faves, extremely annoying. And what if you only want to see results without voting? Have not found to do that. Also, removing the star system means that when searching for something you will not know if you are getting fake results (when a thumbnail and name look like what you're looking for but end up being some random user just talking about said event)... you can tell that these are fake due to the star rating. Some repeated elements are not aligned anymore which ruins consistency as well, others are now only on mouse over, and there is a lot less you can turn off, like related videos and more from this user... now you don't get a choice which is really ugly. Somebody said that they plan to turn Youtube into a "keep watching, keep watching" site, where searches will not stop videos, and I feel it with the option to not turn off related. Oh and if nothing is related or similar you get wasted white space there. They also put the subscribe button in a location that would be prime for unsubscribing (Onison mentioned this) and potentially nuked banners for the moment. It is all very poorly thought out and downgrade.

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