Home improvement: Flickr redesigns homepage

Have you noticed the small attention grabber on the bottom of your Flickr homepage? No? Well, it’s the first sign of Flickr’s upcoming home improvement. The Yahoo-owned photo site wanted to create a new homepage that “surfaces much more of the action going on around you on Flickr”, social technologist Matthew Rothenberg wrote on the corporate blog.

They’ve done that by showing more pictures from your contacts, introducing the latest pics from your groups, and pushing the blog plus your personal stats to the front. But while Flickr has added more content the page, it actually looks cleaner. Once again it’s a fine example of almost perfect and original 2.0 design, like our guest editor Sjors Timmer earlier noted.

For now, users can have a sneak peak via the “Psssssst! Want a sneak peak at your new homepage?” button. With the feedback of the thousands of member photographers, the Flickr designers will then finalize the redesign. There are already 509 replies in the dedicated forum thread, so I guess they won’t be done soon.

If I had to come up with a piece of advice, I’d suggest to remove the side bar, as it’s of no use to me. But I guess that will make Flickr go bankrupt, so never mind.

By the way, even if you’re not interested you should click the button, as you don’t want to miss out on the Flickr balloons and a MIDI version of Sinatra’s Strangers in the Night which appear during the transition. It’s all about user experience folks.