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The new Yahoo! design: What's changed?

On Wednesday, Yahoo! CEO Marissa Mayer unveiled the Web portal's new site design on TODAY. Things are basically the same, but a tiny bit different. (And that's a good thing!)[Marissa Mayer: Being mom and CEO 'takes a lot of focus']"We wanted it to be familiar," Mayer told TODAY, "but we also wanted it to embrace some of the modern paradigms of the Web." Before officially showing off the new design
The \"new Yahoo! experience\" appears to be a slightly cleaner version of the old site design.
The \"new Yahoo! experience\" appears to be a slightly cleaner version of the old site design.Yahoo! / Today

On Wednesday, Yahoo! CEO Marissa Mayer unveiled the Web portal's new site design on TODAY. Things are basically the same, but a tiny bit different. (And that's a good thing!)

[Marissa Mayer: Being mom and CEO 'takes a lot of focus']

"We wanted it to be familiar," Mayer told TODAY, "but we also wanted it to embrace some of the modern paradigms of the Web." Before officially showing off the new design, the executive also spoke about the challenges of being a mom and the youngest CEO of a Fortune 500 company in the America, explaining how both positions "take a lot of focus" and that "there's not a lot of room for everything else" in her life.

The new Yahoo! experience places a news section with an infinity scroll — meaning that you can keep going and going down the page as much as your heart desires — front and center. Gone are all the links and items previously buried at the bottom of the site and everything is just plain more pleasing to the eyes. To make things more convenient, Yahoo! now allows you to log in with your Yahoo! ID or with your Facebook account. (Yes, logging in via Facebook does indeed mean that you'll wind up seeing articles shared by your friends on top of everything else.)

The \"new Yahoo! experience\" appears to be a slightly cleaner version of the old site design.
The \"new Yahoo! experience\" appears to be a slightly cleaner version of the old site design.Yahoo! / Today

And is it just us or did the site's background color change subtly while an extra splash of purple was added here and there?

You won't just be seeing changes on the desktop, mind you. The Yahoo! mobile apps got a slick new coat of paint, too. (The apps are now supposedly a bit speedier, too, thanks to some under-the-hood updates.)

The Yahoo! mobile apps got a bit of a redesign as well, to match the new look of the site.
The Yahoo! mobile apps got a bit of a redesign as well, to match the new look of the site.Yahoo! / Today

Mayer, who became the CEO of Yahoo! in July 2012 was previously the vice president of local, maps, and locations services at Google. Prior to that, she was the vice president of search products and user experience for the search engine giant. In those positions, she was known for pushing for data-driven decisions — as author Steven Levy explains in "In The Plex: How Google Thinks, Works, and Shapes Our Lives" — which means that every little tweak made to a product was backed up by plenty of solid research. (Moving a button by ten pixels? Sure, but only if there's evidence that's what makes users click it more often.)

The old Yahoo! design looks a bit outdated in comparison to its replacement now, doesn't it?
The old Yahoo! design looks a bit outdated in comparison to its replacement now, doesn't it?Yahoo! / Today

With that detail — pun only somewhat intended — in mind, it's no surprise that the new Yahoo! design is full of small but significant changes. Subtle variations on color, cleaner fonts, elements that are shifted into more visible locations, and so on are found everywhere. Mayer's bringing her Google knowhow to Yahoo! and it might just work. But don't let us be the judges — vote in the poll below and tell us what you think about the new Yahoo! design.

(Oh, and if you aren't seeing the new Yahoo! design just yet, you can check it out by following this link.)

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