Continuing our series of redesign posts, we are now going to talk about the new header. It could be argued that a header is more important than any single page. The header appears on all pages and is the main way to navigate a site. As was the case with our new homepage (and our overall redesign policy), our goal with the header was to make our site simpler and easier to navigate.

We started the process by asking "what could be removed"? After looking over the click data, we saw that very few people were using the search tabs. People were here for music, and wanted to only search within music results. Since we believe that less is more, we removed all search tabs.

The next issue we tackled was account-based. The old header showed you when you were logged-in by displaying your name with a drop-down to go to your profile and sign-out. It also had links to edit your profile and your profile settings. These were extraneous since people do not edit their profiles very often. It was also slightly hard to find the sign-out link. The new header shows you when you are logged-in with a quick link to your profile, playlists and sign-out. Much cleaner.

The final thing we changed was the biggest. In the past, we had 10 main navigation links. This posed a problem since we have a lot more than 10 pages. We decided to go with drop-downs on the main links to allow for quicker access to more content. We grouped our pages by type (videos, songs, etc) with tool-tip descriptions. We believe this will be a huge help in navigating our site.

Moving forward, we will put the new header across all our sites. We have a lot of work ahead of us, so things might seem a little weird as we continue to push this out. We also hope to add dynamic content to the drop-downs which will personalize the site according to the music you listen to and the news you read. Please let us know what you think. Your feedback is what drives us. Thanks!

When we sat down to redesign our site, the page everyone wanted to do first was the home page. We've felt for a while that our home page doesn't fully reflect all of the content and features that we have. Everyday we receive feedback asking us about particular features and where they can be found. Our main goal with the new home page was to make things simpler so you can find what you want. We also wanted to highlight some of our features and technology that you may not know about.

One of those features is CD Listening Party. Every week we feature 10-20 new albums that you can listen to for free. On our current homepage, this is buried low on the page. Even so, it is one of the most clicked parts of the page. For the redesign, we raised this much higher on the page. We also gave it some more breathing room.



Right below CD Listening Party is our new 'Real Time Music News' module. Here at AOL Music, we write tons of articles every day about artists, songs and everything else in music. Even though we cover a lot, we can't cover it all! There are many music news sources out there -- and since this is the Web -- we figured that linking to them would be pretty easy. The new News module will show the latest music news with up-to-the-minute updates. The best part is that it is customizable. You can now track news just from your favorite artists if you want.



Another new feature is the ability to see what other people on AOL Music are listening to -- in real time! Anyone with a public profile will be visible on this module. It is a great way to see what music is hot and sample it for yourself. You will also be able to see the last three songs you've listened to, plus a link to see more.



If you are logged in, you can also see what other people on your AIM buddy list are listening to now.



As we stated in our previous post about our redesign, our aim was to make our site simpler to navigate while highlighting our best experiences. We feel confident we have done this with the new home page. Look for it in the next few days. Of course our work is never done. We want to hear your thoughts -- tell us what you think.

It has been a couple of years since we last redesigned our site. Back then, things were a lot different. Our site was built for dial-up users with low-resolution monitors. Our goal was to modernize it by expanding the width and adding a bunch of new features, including streaming audio and video. We introduced a lot of things. Some things worked, others did not. Through it all, you responded with invaluable feedback. We have taken all of that feedback and thought hard about how we can take our site to the next level.

First and foremost, we hope the new design allows you to more easily navigate our site. Our main purpose was to showcase our best features -- features that you have told us you enjoy the most. We have done that by adding more prominent placements of key features. We have also done that by removing extraneous features that were not often used. If we removed something you liked, please let us know. While we have tried hard to keep everything, we understand that anything we remove will probably upset some people.

Starting soon, we will roll out the new design, page by page. The first pages to receive a makeover will be the home page, Artist Main, Albums and a new News page. We will also be rolling out a new header across all our pages. Things may seem a little weird as certain pages will look new and others look the same. Please bear with us. We have a large site! In the coming days, we will write about the new pages with screen shots. As always, we would love to hear what you think.

Update - Check out screen-shots of our new homepage.
Update 2 - Check out screen-shots of our new header.

--AOL Music Team