LinkedIn is a business and employment-oriented social networking service. While its sheer size can give a great value to the business world, it's apparently not that 'social.
It's rather confusing and isn't that much engaging if compared to other social media networks.
For those reasons, LinkedIn is redesigning its desktop website in order to put conversations and content at the center.
First of all, the new look that was announced on January 19th, 2017, is friendlier on the eyes. The company stated it as "the largest desktop redesign since LinkedIn’s inception." The design is heavily inspired by LinkedIn's design for its mobile app. With cleaner and more modern design, LinkedIn for desktop can better meet the current era of web design.
LinkedIn said that its goal is to help users to easily access "the most relevant professional conversations, content and opportunities whether you're on our mobile app or on our desktop experience."
LinkedIn tweaked its color palette a bit, as well as making some other changes to came with it.
The next most prominent change is the larger icons located at the top of the site. This should streamline navigation by margins. There are seven core areas on the bar navigation which include: Home (feed), Messaging, Jobs, Notifications, Me, My Network, and Search.
With one click on the "More" icon on the navigation bar, users can also access other parts of the website.
Then there is the Facebook-liked chat windows that are persistent throughout the pages. LinkedIn encourages users to make conversation on its site by suggesting people to chat with as long as they have a connection at the company.
Going to the feed, LinkedIn also made quite a few changes here and there. The feed has been redesigned with combination of algorithms and human editors working together. This way, the company promises new ways for users to read specific topics they like.
There is also an insight that provides information about the statistics of a content, accessible by the author.
Going to the profile page, LinkedIn added more suggestions as users fill up their profile page.
And just like most other social media networks, there is one universal search that allows users to search about anything on the site. So no more different search types for different sections. This should ease both navigation and simply makes LinkedIn more explorable..
LinkedIn in redesigning its desktop website is straightaway in line with its goal that wants users to seamlessly access the most relevant professional conversations, content and opportunities whether on mobile app or on desktop experience.
Overall, LinkedIn is like copying Facebook. But for the good, Facebook is a lot larger than LinkedIn, and the new design can make users - especially new ones - to see it as something more familiar to them. Anything that can make users stick around longer and engage more, is a plus to any websites out there. And that includes LinkedIn.