Tumblr rolls out a new design
So Tumblr.com has just released a new design. The minimalists out there will be pleased to hear that Tumblr has redefined the terms ‘bare essentials’. In the following post I’ll outline my first impressions using the new tumblr. I’ll work my way through it from beginning to end, describing my experience signing up for a new account and creating a new tumble log that I’m going to call ‘Cardinal Point‘.
Tumblr Frontpage
The site’s colour scheme could almost be called ‘monochrome’, were it not for a subtle hint of midnight blue and the industrial mesh motif at the top. The design is without doubt riding on the 2.0 wave, with it’s soft rounded edges, bold contrasts in tone and the bubble logo, but it’s done with class and an attention to detail. Minimalism done badly is boring, but get the right combination and weighting and it can be very sexy!
The structure and layout follows suit providing visitors with 3 options: sign up, login or help. Signing up to tumblr is just one step more demanding than signing into your email you enter your email address, a password and you choose a tumble log name. So they’ve ditched all the explanatory blurb to the extent that you almost need to hunt for it (hint: try clicking on the tumblr front page tag line), stripped the site of any excess, leaving you with a clear choice: either sign up or leave. I’d like to know what sort of conversion rate this ultra short sign-up strategy creates. How do people respond to the bare essentials? Is this tumblr’s attempt at bringing the functionality and simplicity of the Apple iphone into the blogging world? It works for me.
User Dashboard
After just 1 minute deciding a new name for my tumble log I was logged into the dashboard, no email verifications, no annoying double checks, bam! Straight in! And here I’m presented with a number of options. First of all I can post new material to my tumble log by selecting one of the self-explanatory icons along the bottom of the dashboard. But before adding content to my new tumble log I want to make sure it looks and feels right. So I click on the account options button and navigate to ‘theme’ and this is where things really start getting interesting.
Tumblr has set up a slick new real time theme preview screen so that I can get an immediate idea of what my tumble log will look like in its new clothes. There are 9 sexy designs to choose from and they also allow you to import your own html code so watch out for all the tumblr theme sites that will start shooting up! Once you’ve chosen your theme you can then return to the main dashboard and adjust other various account settings including your feeds setup. Tumblr offers the possibility of pulling content from other sites onto your tumble log, so if you have a blog for example you can enter your blog’s feed and have your tumble log automatically display your most recent blog posts.
Channels and Followers
So with the user-side of things taken care of, it’s time to take a look at the new interactive elements that tumblr has to offer. First of at the top of the dashboard you’ll notice a link to ‘channels’. A channel is something you can set up in order to share things with other people. You can get your friends and family to subscribe to your channel for example, so they are kept up to date with any new content you post or files you want to share. Channels are a great idea because they are kept private. Anyone who is invited to join a channel can in turn invite others as well. So ultimately what you create is a network of people in your entourage.
The second interactive element on tumblr is ‘followers’. The “Followers” panel on the Dashboard displays users who have added you as a friend, and are following your posts. This is a good way of tracking who’s reading your tuble log within tumblr and equally to discover other people’s tumble logs too.
Final words
As you can tell, my review of the new tumblr design is generally very positive, I was impressed by the design choices but more than the pleasing aesthetic side of things, it is the overall simplicity and operation speed of tumblr that makes it a joy to use. To my mind, a part from adding the single lines of text in twitter or pownce, there is no other social media platform that comes close to tumblr’s efficiency. The ability to post all new web media at the click of a few buttons and to present them on a clean and sexy design is the culmination of 2 years of web 2.0. Bravo tumblr and keep up the great service!
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