10 ms·

Please put me back to old My Yahoo

22 points by stinger 13y ago

michaelpinto 13y ago
You can't import the extra tabs to the new service? The decent engineering talent has clearly left the building at Yahoo! MyYahoo has been my default RSS reader before there was a google (yes I'm ancient) and it was a real gem. I have 10 tabs in the damn thing and the idea of those not being easy to transfer is a really great reason to find something else. I guess my real lesson is NEVER trust a third party with the data you love. And I don't care if it's Google or Facebook I'm telling you now as you become an older nerd that those services will go the way of GeoCities one day.
xenophanes 13y ago
Yahoo just broke Yahoo Groups a few weeks ago. The new UI is god awful and makes some stuff impossible (like posting in plain text with proper quoting). It's also literally rather broken: author search doesn't work at all. Also they are losing and delaying emails at random and have been for weeks, and stopped answering support emails about it.
badman_ting 13y ago
People hate change. Sometimes warranted, sometimes not.
shitlord 13y ago
This reminds me of an xkcd comic: every change breaks someone's workflow. It would have been a good idea to include an opt out feature, though.
- colmvp 13y ago
  Eh. Having to create new features that also support the old design is a pain the ass.
- sosborn 13y ago
  >It would have been a good idea to include an opt out feature, though How far do you carry that opt out? Three versions down the line do you end up having to select one out of four versions? Who is going to maintain that?
  - derefr 13y ago
    Exactly. These people don't realize that "try it" really means "switch ahead of the time when we force everyone else to switch." There's no opt-out because everyone is going to be switched sooner or later, whether they like it or not.
    - yuhong 13y ago
      It is still useful when the new version have problems. It took some time before Google finally removed the old Google Groups, and they made it easy to switch back and forth during the meantime.
      - plorkyeran 13y ago
        And currently you have the new Google Maps that's mostly useless, and it's fairly easy to switch back and forth between it and the old version.
    - PeterisP 13y ago
      Well, if they mean "switch ahead of time", then they'd better say so - instead, if they are saying "try it", then there is a misleading implication "choose which one you prefer" which in this case apparantly is lying to the users.
DigitalSea 13y ago
The aged old problem of change: there are always people who are against it. Change is what Yahoo! needs, if some people can't handle it then maybe they should move on.
- CamperBob2 13y ago
  Except they 'fixed' stuff that wasn't broken, like Groups.
  - Aloha 13y ago
    Yes, indeed.
  - aidenn0 13y ago
    and sports. top center for each team page used to be the most current game with direct links to box-score and recap/preview. below that was news with stats and division standings in a sidebar. everything I wanted on one page. Now it's split into multiple pages that aren't well interlinked. only thing I can think of is they get more money with more pageviews
    - CamperBob2 13y ago
      Sounds plausible. By far the plurality of complaints on that page have to do with the loss of customizability. It's as if Yahoo desperately wants people to flip through several pages of unrequested information from sports scores to stock quotes, where one custom page would have sufficed before. This also ties in with the overall industry trend of using more pixels -- in the form of unnecessary whitespace and large fonts that, again, can't be customized by the user -- to display less information. Once again, the company gets more ad revenue as users struggle to access content that was previously displayed in a more compact format. These days, beleaguered behemoths like Yahoo and Microsoft focus their business strategies on their wants and needs rather than those of their users. Obviously, this kind of abuse will only work until they're replaced by more customer-centric organizations.
  - dchest 13y ago
nhebb 13y ago
I don't like the color scheme, but other than that it's not too bad. Yahoo does need to allow more user customization before they lose too many users. That said, people tend to be more vocal when they don't like something. I doubt that those who like the change, or aren't bothered by it, are going to make a comment on uservoice.
- rll 13y ago
  "Choose Themes" fixes your colour scheme issue.
  - nhebb 13y ago
    If there ever comes a day when I actually use yahoo, I may just take your advice and look for that. ;-)
prostoalex 13y ago
I opted into new My Yahoo!, was presented with a preview with a warning as well as an option to go back https://www.evernote.com/shard/s103/sh/6dff6226-59b4-44e1-8239-35826d9b7bee/42268552ba92610f4e19f1508d723fe5/deep/0/Screenshot%209/20/13%209:56%20PM.png https://www.evernote.com/shard/s103/sh/6dff6226-59b4-44e1-82... What did I do wrong?
Aloha 13y ago
The web interface for Yahoo! Groups is more or less unusable. The admin panel doesn't load, can't read messages, can't approve people - More or Less - its non functional.
mythz 13y ago
I haven't used My Yahoo in about 4-5 years since switching to igoogle, but since iGoogle shuts down at the end of the year I just gave My Yahoo another look as I'll need a new dashboard/news/weather replacement soon. The old My Yahoo was hideous, that looked like it accumulated a bit of Bitrot over the years, the new one actually looks like a breath of fresh air, quite polished and well-designed. It's more likely I'll be switching back to My Yahoo once iGoogle goes out.
- psbp 13y ago
  Are we looking at the same site?: https://my.yahoo.com/?mkg=970 https://my.yahoo.com/?mkg=970 iGoogle is being transitioned out for a Google now homepage. It's a much better implementation than a smattering of stale info boxes/links.
JDDunn9 13y ago
Ah the vocal minority. As Henry Ford said, "If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses". Don't let a few troglodytes stand in the way of progress. Look at your analytics for approval/disapproval, not your inbox.
- psbp 13y ago
  Have you seen the actual site? It's atrocious.
  - sagarm 13y ago
    Looked quite nice to me. Disclaimer: I don't use my.yahoo.com.
gioele 13y ago
I prefer hearing about _the reasons_ why something new is not appreciated rather than the usual "the older was better". The poster of the complaint didn't really want to go back to the old My Yahoo. What they want is a new My Yahoo that * use smaller fonts ("Font way too big and no way to adjust.") * preserve the user-configured layouts ("Apps are rearranged all over the place, and some old ones are no longer available.") * provide the useful quick previews for new items ("Hovering over news items no longer gives brief synopses.") * etc. Any discussion about "new vs old" is not going to be constructive. Users should learn to report "what" they want, not just filing generic complains. But treating users as intelligent people that can be taught things may go against the current trend of treating users (especially when customers) as spoiled kids. If I were to deploy such an interface change I would provide a complaints box with these instructions: "0) complain only about one things, you can file as many complaint as you want. 1) Please summarize what you do not like. 2) Please suggest a better alternative. NOTE: generic complains like 'it sucks' will be ignored."
- hussong 13y ago
  You can read the generic complaints as "I don't want things to change at all. They were ok the way they were. I don't want to be forced to adapt to changes that I never asked for and that do not seem beneficial to me. I don't want to deal with this at all. I don't even want to think about it. I just want to use the app like I used to and carry on with my life." Resistance to change is a major factor in the adoption of new technology and without some kind of change management, reactance will occur.
neya 13y ago
What is surprising (and scary) to me is that corporates such as Yahoo who have lots of money and great talent can only end up with seriously mediocre at best re-designs? At first reading the user complaints, I just thought "Bah, they would get used to it" (without actually visiting the page first). And then I visited https://my.yahoo.com https://my.yahoo.com, I totally agree with those complaints. as a fellow designer, some points I've noticed: #Poor selection of font sizes #Poor selection of colors (especially for background) #Poor application of borders (remember, in design, borders portray complexity (in this case, unwanted). #Inconsistent design themes (Search button has borders and gradients and shadows, the rest do not) http://img809.imageshack.us/img809/9383/hhew.png http://img809.imageshack.us/img809/9383/hhew.png It seems to me that the design they had in mind was something iOS7-ish (which is actually good due to the minimal information it shows the user at any point) , but ultimately they ended up with something else more complex, confusing and awful. Either way I wish Yahoo good luck and wouldn't dare to judge an entire company based on this design alone.
- l33tbro 13y ago
  So on the money. How does this happen? Mayer's majdate was all about a culture shift, aligning the company to her old digs at Google. But it remains a thoroughly mediocre interface and service (for some reason I have refused to relinquish my Yahoo Mail account). I think it comes down to 2 things: A) there's an AOL-esque aspect to Yahoo. I genuinely believe that they don't want to be innovative, because they have such a white-shoe and casual-user demographic trapped in their walled garden. Yahoo doesn't want or need to re-invent ghe wheel. Ii) Yahoo, as s company, is such a bloated entity. A fresh, interesting, original design concept would have so many layers to penetrate. Hence, the diluted mediocre crap.
  - yuhong 13y ago
    I think Marissa tries to be personally involved in some design work.
    - l33tbro 13y ago
      She's pretty hands on. This is an illuminating (though longish) piece regarding her approach: http://www.businessinsider.com.au/marissa-mayer-biography-2013-8# http://www.businessinsider.com.au/marissa-mayer-biography-20...
jmadsen 13y ago
The issue sfor me are: 1) like all the subjects of this link, I can't go take a look & decide - they're forcing me into it. 2) I use Yahoo as a simple new aggregator, with a few small, collapsible boxes for weather, a few sports scores, a couple links. I don't need to see images of the sun that take 15% of my screen to tell me tomorrow will be sunny I think the comment "This is MY Yahoo, not YOUR Yahoo" hit it right on target. Add to the fact that their new email system is an unusable disaster, it is sadly time after 15(?) years to dump them
jmadsen 13y ago
I can't believe how much of the stuff they put out these days is just flat out broken. How does this get past QA? I've posted this before, but for all the money they have, give me a decently paid position and I'll at least make sure things actually WORK

22 points by stinger 13y ago

You can't import the extra tabs to the new service? The decent engineering talent has clearly left the building at Yahoo! MyYahoo has been my default RSS reader before there was a google (yes I'm ancient) and it was a real gem. I have 10 tabs in the damn thing and the idea of those not being easy to transfer is a really great reason to find something else. I guess my real lesson is NEVER trust a third party with the data you love. And I don't care if it's Google or Facebook I'm telling you now as you become an older nerd that those services will go the way of GeoCities one day.

xenophanes 13y ago

Yahoo just broke Yahoo Groups a few weeks ago. The new UI is god awful and makes some stuff impossible (like posting in plain text with proper quoting). It's also literally rather broken: author search doesn't work at all. Also they are losing and delaying emails at random and have been for weeks, and stopped answering support emails about it.

badman_ting 13y ago

People hate change. Sometimes warranted, sometimes not.

shitlord 13y ago

This reminds me of an xkcd comic: every change breaks someone's workflow. It would have been a good idea to include an opt out feature, though.

colmvp 13y ago
Eh. Having to create new features that also support the old design is a pain the ass.
sosborn 13y ago
>It would have been a good idea to include an opt out feature, though How far do you carry that opt out? Three versions down the line do you end up having to select one out of four versions? Who is going to maintain that?
- derefr 13y ago
  Exactly. These people don't realize that "try it" really means "switch ahead of the time when we force everyone else to switch." There's no opt-out because everyone is going to be switched sooner or later, whether they like it or not.
  - yuhong 13y ago
    It is still useful when the new version have problems. It took some time before Google finally removed the old Google Groups, and they made it easy to switch back and forth during the meantime.
    - plorkyeran 13y ago
      And currently you have the new Google Maps that's mostly useless, and it's fairly easy to switch back and forth between it and the old version.
  - PeterisP 13y ago
    Well, if they mean "switch ahead of time", then they'd better say so - instead, if they are saying "try it", then there is a misleading implication "choose which one you prefer" which in this case apparantly is lying to the users.

DigitalSea 13y ago

The aged old problem of change: there are always people who are against it. Change is what Yahoo! needs, if some people can't handle it then maybe they should move on.

CamperBob2 13y ago
Except they 'fixed' stuff that wasn't broken, like Groups.
- Aloha 13y ago
  Yes, indeed.
- aidenn0 13y ago
  and sports. top center for each team page used to be the most current game with direct links to box-score and recap/preview. below that was news with stats and division standings in a sidebar. everything I wanted on one page. Now it's split into multiple pages that aren't well interlinked. only thing I can think of is they get more money with more pageviews
  - CamperBob2 13y ago
    Sounds plausible. By far the plurality of complaints on that page have to do with the loss of customizability. It's as if Yahoo desperately wants people to flip through several pages of unrequested information from sports scores to stock quotes, where one custom page would have sufficed before. This also ties in with the overall industry trend of using more pixels -- in the form of unnecessary whitespace and large fonts that, again, can't be customized by the user -- to display less information. Once again, the company gets more ad revenue as users struggle to access content that was previously displayed in a more compact format. These days, beleaguered behemoths like Yahoo and Microsoft focus their business strategies on their wants and needs rather than those of their users. Obviously, this kind of abuse will only work until they're replaced by more customer-centric organizations.
- dchest 13y ago

nhebb 13y ago

I don't like the color scheme, but other than that it's not too bad. Yahoo does need to allow more user customization before they lose too many users. That said, people tend to be more vocal when they don't like something. I doubt that those who like the change, or aren't bothered by it, are going to make a comment on uservoice.

rll 13y ago
"Choose Themes" fixes your colour scheme issue.
- nhebb 13y ago
  If there ever comes a day when I actually use yahoo, I may just take your advice and look for that. ;-)

prostoalex 13y ago

I opted into new My Yahoo!, was presented with a preview with a warning as well as an option to go back https://www.evernote.com/shard/s103/sh/6dff6226-59b4-44e1-8239-35826d9b7bee/42268552ba92610f4e19f1508d723fe5/deep/0/Screenshot%209/20/13%209:56%20PM.png https://www.evernote.com/shard/s103/sh/6dff6226-59b4-44e1-82... What did I do wrong?

Aloha 13y ago

The web interface for Yahoo! Groups is more or less unusable. The admin panel doesn't load, can't read messages, can't approve people - More or Less - its non functional.

mythz 13y ago

I haven't used My Yahoo in about 4-5 years since switching to igoogle, but since iGoogle shuts down at the end of the year I just gave My Yahoo another look as I'll need a new dashboard/news/weather replacement soon. The old My Yahoo was hideous, that looked like it accumulated a bit of Bitrot over the years, the new one actually looks like a breath of fresh air, quite polished and well-designed. It's more likely I'll be switching back to My Yahoo once iGoogle goes out.

psbp 13y ago
Are we looking at the same site?: https://my.yahoo.com/?mkg=970 https://my.yahoo.com/?mkg=970 iGoogle is being transitioned out for a Google now homepage. It's a much better implementation than a smattering of stale info boxes/links.

JDDunn9 13y ago

Ah the vocal minority. As Henry Ford said, "If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses". Don't let a few troglodytes stand in the way of progress. Look at your analytics for approval/disapproval, not your inbox.

psbp 13y ago
Have you seen the actual site? It's atrocious.
- sagarm 13y ago
  Looked quite nice to me. Disclaimer: I don't use my.yahoo.com.

gioele 13y ago

I prefer hearing about _the reasons_ why something new is not appreciated rather than the usual "the older was better". The poster of the complaint didn't really want to go back to the old My Yahoo. What they want is a new My Yahoo that * use smaller fonts ("Font way too big and no way to adjust.") * preserve the user-configured layouts ("Apps are rearranged all over the place, and some old ones are no longer available.") * provide the useful quick previews for new items ("Hovering over news items no longer gives brief synopses.") * etc. Any discussion about "new vs old" is not going to be constructive. Users should learn to report "what" they want, not just filing generic complains. But treating users as intelligent people that can be taught things may go against the current trend of treating users (especially when customers) as spoiled kids. If I were to deploy such an interface change I would provide a complaints box with these instructions: "0) complain only about one things, you can file as many complaint as you want. 1) Please summarize what you do not like. 2) Please suggest a better alternative. NOTE: generic complains like 'it sucks' will be ignored."

hussong 13y ago
You can read the generic complaints as "I don't want things to change at all. They were ok the way they were. I don't want to be forced to adapt to changes that I never asked for and that do not seem beneficial to me. I don't want to deal with this at all. I don't even want to think about it. I just want to use the app like I used to and carry on with my life." Resistance to change is a major factor in the adoption of new technology and without some kind of change management, reactance will occur.

neya 13y ago

What is surprising (and scary) to me is that corporates such as Yahoo who have lots of money and great talent can only end up with seriously mediocre at best re-designs? At first reading the user complaints, I just thought "Bah, they would get used to it" (without actually visiting the page first). And then I visited https://my.yahoo.com https://my.yahoo.com, I totally agree with those complaints. as a fellow designer, some points I've noticed: #Poor selection of font sizes #Poor selection of colors (especially for background) #Poor application of borders (remember, in design, borders portray complexity (in this case, unwanted). #Inconsistent design themes (Search button has borders and gradients and shadows, the rest do not) http://img809.imageshack.us/img809/9383/hhew.png http://img809.imageshack.us/img809/9383/hhew.png It seems to me that the design they had in mind was something iOS7-ish (which is actually good due to the minimal information it shows the user at any point) , but ultimately they ended up with something else more complex, confusing and awful. Either way I wish Yahoo good luck and wouldn't dare to judge an entire company based on this design alone.

l33tbro 13y ago
So on the money. How does this happen? Mayer's majdate was all about a culture shift, aligning the company to her old digs at Google. But it remains a thoroughly mediocre interface and service (for some reason I have refused to relinquish my Yahoo Mail account). I think it comes down to 2 things: A) there's an AOL-esque aspect to Yahoo. I genuinely believe that they don't want to be innovative, because they have such a white-shoe and casual-user demographic trapped in their walled garden. Yahoo doesn't want or need to re-invent ghe wheel. Ii) Yahoo, as s company, is such a bloated entity. A fresh, interesting, original design concept would have so many layers to penetrate. Hence, the diluted mediocre crap.
- yuhong 13y ago
  I think Marissa tries to be personally involved in some design work.
  - l33tbro 13y ago
    She's pretty hands on. This is an illuminating (though longish) piece regarding her approach: http://www.businessinsider.com.au/marissa-mayer-biography-2013-8# http://www.businessinsider.com.au/marissa-mayer-biography-20...

jmadsen 13y ago

The issue sfor me are: 1) like all the subjects of this link, I can't go take a look & decide - they're forcing me into it. 2) I use Yahoo as a simple new aggregator, with a few small, collapsible boxes for weather, a few sports scores, a couple links. I don't need to see images of the sun that take 15% of my screen to tell me tomorrow will be sunny I think the comment "This is MY Yahoo, not YOUR Yahoo" hit it right on target. Add to the fact that their new email system is an unusable disaster, it is sadly time after 15(?) years to dump them

jmadsen 13y ago

I can't believe how much of the stuff they put out these days is just flat out broken. How does this get past QA? I've posted this before, but for all the money they have, give me a decently paid position and I'll at least make sure things actually WORK