I don’t now how upset you have been over the last year, seeing LinkedIn adding more and more functionality, trying to keep up with social media (adding status updates) and real time web (syncing twitter with LinkedIn) and its competitors (adding pictures to profiles). And by doing this, the User Interface got more and more disorganized and ended up to be a clutter.

I used LinkedIn less and less because I couldn’t get use to all the different navigation bars and different ways to navigate around. All the new functionality that had been added ended up somewhere in that huge black hole.

It was time for a redesign. Kevin Bury, the ‘Principal User Experience Designer at LinkedIn, explains in his blog post the reason behind the change

We began the redesign effort several months ago by analysing how people use LinkedIn.  We looked at what features people use the most and pored over several years of data from usability research on the site. Armed with this information we began doing design explorations of how to better organize LinkedIn features, and make them more convenient to find and use.

We factored into this effort additional features we knew were coming. We narrowed down the designs to a few candidates we felt were strong contenders. We then prototyped these designs and had users perform tasks with the prototypes in the usability lab. We went through numerous iterations until we arrived at a design we felt worked the best.  One of the key features of the new design is that it allows much more space for page content – information about you and your professional network.

and the new design elements

A global navigation bar at the top of the page that provides convenient access to all LinkedIn services.

Simplified local navigation within each of the LinkedIn areas (Profile, Contacts, Groups, etc.).

More room available for page content. Less scrolling.

cleaner, less-cluttered look.

The new User Interface is live and I must say after the first look and feel, it ROCKS!. Far easier to navigate through the site and the elements used are more common to what is out there on the web. More room and more space to breath. Thanks

After ‘Groups’ now ‘Applications’ have arrived at LinkedIn. Offered by other Social Networks like Facebook, LinkedIn has started its own integrated application option. First Steps in that area are integrated applications like Slideshare, Wordpress and Amazon. The focus of these baby steps are articulated in the promotion email:

… it’s a new way to create projects and collaborate, share information, customize your profile, or gain key insights …

First impression looking into these options could be expressed as a very basic but useful integration. Lots of us do publish slides on slideshare.net and the only way to show these to your target audiences is to integrated them in your blog (if you have one) or sending them a link to your slideshare profile or to link to your profile out of LinkedIn. Now there is a more visible option available. Just activate the Slideshare application (full guidance on that could be found here) and link to your slideshare profile. After you have done that your last three slides presentations published on slideshare do show up in your LinkedIn Profile.

The same applies to the Wordpress application. As it would be great to integrate your posts from your blog in LinkedIn and publish your posts there (at least the teasers) and make them aware to your LinkedIn profile visitors. After activating this application the result looks like this.

Finally applications arrived at LinkedIn. In the european market leader they havent arrived yet, but I am sure that the guys at XING.com are waorking on it. How ever, there are more than 5000 applications on Facebook (the innovator in that field) so the offerings to date are just a starting point and it will be fun to watch what is coming up. For now its an optimiyed way to publish your assets (presentations, blog entries etc.) in an easy into your LinkedIn profile and attract your visitors even more.

Over the last couple of weeks i have realised two way recommendations at LinkedIn more often.

Fellow X ‘highly recommends‘ Fellow Y and Fellow Y ’highly recommends‘ Fellow X.

The only way you are able to see that kind of behaviour is if both recommendations happen almost at the same time and therefore show up in your “Network Updates”. After that, you have to check both recommendations of each person to discover that.

Is it a good or a bad thing to do? It’s the usage of a technology given and to make the most out of it. “If I recommend you, would you recommend me?”. Whether the recommendations at LinkedIn help, I do not know at this stage. If I hire somebody I check LinkedIn but not their recommendations especially now after realizing how ‘honest’ they might have been put together.