OUGD503 Yahoo! Study Task One (Studio Brief One)

We have been set a one day brief to redesign a Yahoo! webpage. The requirements say that we have to keep the logo design exactly the same, just change the webpage.

In numbers:  To increase the percent of  Yahoo! users to set  Yahoo! as their homepage.In perception: I’m inspired to make Yahoo! the place I start my internet journey every day.

RESEARCH INTO BING:

• BING was released on June 1st 2009.
• It was known previously as Live Search, Windows Live Search, and MSN Search.
• Notable changes include the listing of search suggestions while queries are entered and a list of released searches (called Explore pane) based on semantic technology from Powerset which Microsoft purchased in 2008.
• On July 29 2009, Microsoft and Yahoo! announced a deal in which Bing would power Yahoo! Search. All Yahoo! Search global customers and partners made the transition by early 2012
• In October 2011, Microsoft stated that they were working on a new back-end search infrastructure with the goal of delivering faster and slightly more relevant search results for users. Known as ‘Tiger’, the new index-serving technology has been incorporated into Bing globally since August 2011.
• In May 2012, Microsoft announced another redesign of its search engine that includes ‘Sidebar’, a social feature that searches users’ social networks for information relevant to the search query.
• In September 2013, a new-look Bing was released to tie in with Microsoft’s Metro design language.
• As of February 2015, it is the second largest search engine in the US with a query volume at 19.8%, while Yahoo Search, which Bing powers, has 12.8%. It’s competitor Google is at 64.5%.
• On July 29, 2009, Microsoft and Yahoo! announced that they had made a ten-year deal in which the Yahoo! search engine would be replaced by Bing. Yahoo! will get to keep 88% of the revenue from all search ad sales on its site for the first five years of the deal, and have the right to sell advertising on some Microsoft sites. Yahoo! Search will still maintain its own user interface, but will eventually feature "Powered by Bing™" branding. All Yahoo! Search global customers and partners made the transition by early 2012.
• Apple's search results have now been integrated with Bing's web search engine.
• On June 10, 2013, Apple announced that it will be dropping Google as its web search engine and include Microsoft's Bing.
• This feature is only integrated with iOS 7 and higher and for users with an iPhone 4S or higher as the feature is only integrated with Siri, Apple's personal assistant.

BING is the Acronym of

‘Because It’s Not Google’.

Critic-made acronyms: 

‘But It’s Not Google’, 

‘Big Investment, No Goals’, 

‘Bing Is Not Groovy’, 

‘Brought In New Garbage’, 

‘Big Incompetent Net Grub’, 

‘Bill, It’s No Good’, 

‘But It’s Nearly Google’, 

‘Be Innovative, Not Geeky’

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ORIGNAL LOGO: Post modern, messy, cluttered, overcrowded, lack of negative space.

As a group, we all decided that it would be more beneficial if at first we all create our own rough ideas and designs of how we wanted the new Yahoo! page to look. These can all be viewed below. I think this particular design is effective, however it's very simplistic and quite similar to Bing! - which isn't exactly a bad thing, however it is its own website so should be different.

I then designed the logo below. At first I really struggled to make a design, as all of my designs seemed to end up looking exactly like Google. Maybe this is because Google will never be beaten, or maybe it's because their minimal design is very appealing - I'm not too sure. Either way I carried on designing some more layouts.

This was the most successful webpage design that I came up with. I think it's effective because it's quite minimal, and the idea was that it could be personable to the user, for example they could choose and alter all the quick click options in the centre of the page.

This is the design that Emily originally came up with. I think it's really slick - although too similar to Google.

This next design I personally think is very successful as it is still quite similar to Google, however it is also more similar to Bing as it uses a background image - which is relevant as Yahoo is now powered by Bing.

We also decided as a group that it could be really personable, for example you could link the Yahoo page to Facebook and Google Calendars. We did however, also consider the age limit for people using Facebook, as on average people join Facebook at age 13, however the legal age needed to join Facebook is 16. We thought of ways this could be stopped, for example online betting websites often require an ID confirmation - in the form of a passport photograph or photograph of a driving license. 

We then designed an app in the same style as our final webpage design.

When presenting our idea to the rest of our peers, people said that we were overly critical of the old logo design - which wouldn't be good if we were actually pitching the idea to Yahoo! We also missed out talking about the reasoning for the circle - which we did as it's inclusive and friendly. Simon said he liked the fact that it involves Facebook as it makes it personable to the user, and it's a good idea as it would be a reminder to people, for example with birthdays to buy presents and cards. Another critique that was said is that we should've shown more of the development - for example SHOW how the connection to Facebook would work - but this was pretty difficult to complete in around four hours.