As I log into My Yahoo! account I am greeted with a message that a new updated version of My Yahoo! site is available as a beta site. Since Yahoo! usually lets you go back to the old version again, I thought I would check it out. Basically it has become the typical AJAX’d to hell big font “Web2.0” site. Fooy. I don’t get the new interfaces with all this Javascript, big-ass fonts, and bubbly edges, they are just such bloated pigs. The new font resolutions make it really difficult to use anything but a full-screened browser, which I hate to do. The UI is windowed for a reason. The My Yahoo! beta reminds me a lot of the new mail interface Yahoo! designed a few years ago. No I don’t use it either, it was just to slow and clunky of an interface back then, though I haven’t tried it again.  Another part that irked me is that many of the modules I had on My Yahoo! page no longer worked on the new site.  Why would you offer a new layout if many of the items which are used, aren’t available any longer?  I don’t get that.

FogCreek Software’s FogBugz has done the same thing with their latest release, 6.0. Changed to this really fat font and some other layout changes. I understand UI changes always take some time to get used to, but even after three weeks using the product, it still doesn’t feel natural. Funny, reading Joel Spolsky’s blog, when he returned to New York after his first demo tour for FogBugz 6.0 he himself the UI has been stripped down way to much and it’s just horrible. It happens, anyone in development knows it. At least he is being smart about it and re-doing it from step one.

I have to say that I am happy that so far Yahoo! hasn’t forced me into using their new interfaces for their products. I don’t think that I am that stubborn when it comes to changes, I just expect at least to have the same functionality that I did in a previous version. Don’t make me take two steps backwards in functionality when you introduce a new product.

I would really like to know why web designers are thinking this new larger font is the way to go on web pages? I am seeing it more and more, and I still find it less appealing and usable.