I couldn’t get this illustration out of my head after seeing it with the NYT article on economy … I wondered what it takes to become an optimist.

Link to NYT article: In Dark Days, They Let the Sun Shine In (Oct 18, 2008)

Illustration by Jennifer Daniel

This week’s Sunday Business section on New York Times has an interesting article about Yahoo!’s approach revamping their homepage - one bit at a time.

Even though this is not the practice that I am familiar with, the idea of letting users to adopt a new interface in a step by step fashion does seem very pratical, and convincing to me. For websites that have millions of users (including my company), any change, whether it’s good or bad, runs a huge risk of alienating existing users, and the impact is sometimes unpredictable.

Well, think Facebook’s recent profile / app platform changes.

“If you go from light to dark by flipping a switch, your eyes may hurt for a minute or two, you may end up being able to see faster if you use the dimmer.” - Tapan Bhat, Yahoo!

Link: Changing That Home Page? Take Baby Steps (NYT Oct. 17, 2008)