m.www.yahoo.com

I recently received a complaint from a colleague that she is not able to get to the yahoo website:

http://www.yahoo.com

instead she was redirected to the following website:

http://m.www.yahoo.com

The first reaction from our helpdesk was that there could be a possible spyware on her computer. Mostly because others who type the following address were redirected to the following page:

http://www.yahoo.com/?nm=1

A quick search in Google quickly revealed that she was directed to a new interface which yahoo is testing. The frustrating part is the users are picked at random and are not given a choice to revert back.

The fix is to clear the cookie and the cache in her browser. Also her feedback was that she did not really like the new interface, she preferred the old one because:

1. To her it was prettier with the pictures that changes according to season. Like right now there is the Christmas greeting.
2. Everything is with one click.

I read comments from other sites and a lot of them did not like it either, even though Yahoo was trying to emulate Google's cleaner interface. I guess that is a lesson to be learned. One your user base is used to an interface, you should not just change it; otherwise you risk angering your loyal customers!!!