The Latest Digg Revision: Superb

Yesterday, Digg introduced a new layout. It’s one I welcome wholeheartedly.

Before, the menu at the top was arranged in decent fashion, but was nonetheless a bit too crowded. Categories were “smushed” close together. It wasn’t the prettiest it could be. The newest notch on Digg’s evolutionary timetable, however, is very lovely indeed. Much more so than its ancestor. Without question.

The new arrangement is undoubtedly more user friendly. Whereas one could previously travel to various sectors of the website with very few clicks of the cursor, the new Digg puts emphasis on ease of use.

Diggers will likely warm immediately to do the drop-down menu styling, and because the chosen section (News, Videos, etc.) and/or category (Technology, Business, Entertainment, etc.) are highlighted in white, rather than signified with a subtle arrow as was previously the case, one can see more clearly where one is currently inside the system, making for very straightforward navigation.

Changes to Digg’s advertisement structure are noticeable as well. Gone is the troubling front-page banner born of Microsoft’s ad department. Instead, 300×250-pixel blocks (still coming by way of Redmond, of course) are presented alongside the lists of links. I must say, as a staunch proponent of intelligent placement of ad spots, this is very pleasing to see.

At each individual story page, things are a bit different. Ads from Google and Microsoft vie for banner space (it’s one or the other, but they swap places now and again) or the spot adjacent to the story info. While the presence of graphical banners will no doubt continue to irk many users of the website, regardless of the update to the UI, it must be said that the new color combo makes those annoyances just slightly less, you know, annoying.

There’s one thing the Digg design team (piloted by the fabled Daniel Burka) seems to understand so very well, and it is that new shouldn’t necessarily mean revolutionary, that new shouldn’t connote a complete shift in presentation or approach. They understand that they have a user base of millions that have grown familiar with the Digg model, and have gotten used to where things are and how things operate. They know big changes are bound to create more agitation than acceptance. So they’ve chosen (and smartly so) to maintain the general vibe of the website and only make edits in ways that actually benefits the general user. For that, their work is much appreciated.

To close, I’ll say this. TechCrunch’s Duncan Riley might see the updated spectrum of hues as more feminine than before, but whether that is indeed the case or not, one can’t argue with the fact that, sitewide, everything looks a whole heck of a lot better. Even the ads – the recent inclusion of Microsoft ads, particularly the banner variety, hasn’t exactly been met with rapturous applause within the Digg community – are now much more appropriately placed, particularly on the front page.

The latest advances might seem unimpressive and pointless to some, and hardly worthy of any mention whatsoever, but in my view Burka & Co should be commended for giving people a venue so much the better in which to share and discover new things. That may sound easy to do, but it’s very much the opposite when you’ve got millions of users to please.