LinkedIn launched a redesign of their site today. It incorporates a new navigation structure and looks more like a social site that before. Something significant to notice is the tabbed structure which has been replaced with a left navigation. I blogged about how Amazon made this change with their redesign as well.

LinkedIn Before

LinkedIn After

The tab metaphor seems to be going away in contemporary web design. Perhaps because tabbed navigation doesn’t make good usability sense. According to Jakob Nielsen:

Tabs should be used to alternate between views within the same context not to navigate to different areas

Overall I prefer the new design. I think it’s a clean interface that “borrows” layout geography from Facebook (which is good for user’s of both sites but not so much for the Facebook design team)

One think that does seem to bother me though is the shadow on the left navigation

If there is a shadow left and right at the bottom shouldn’t there also be a shadow in the valley?

Air tight interactive has developed a of a 3d visualization of browsing flicker photos. The interaction design could be a but smoother but overall a cool concept.

The use of the Z axis (third dimension) in software can be a powerful new way of representing the heirachy of information. Here’s an experiment representing what Photoshop would look like using a 3D UI. but I wonder what happens when you turn it on?

Courtesy of hypocrit.com

Amazon is in the early stages of revealing their new design. According to their website:

“We traveled around the world, inviting customers like you to come and try out the new features and design. We listened to their feedback and made changes based on their opinions. Then we asked more customers for their advice, and we made more changes from their feedback. The design you see today reflects the input of many real-life customers of our U.S. and international websites.”

Original Web Design

Amazon’s traditional tabbed navigation

It’s nice to hear they listened to their customers, they sure don’t have a shortage of those.

It’s interesting to note, Amazon was the site that made “tabbed navigation” so popular. With their new design they’ve changed the navigation scheme to primarily left navigation.

Perhaps they read Jacob Nielsen’s latest post