Nov 04
Review: PayPal Redesign
What do you think of the recent PayPal redesign and the new PayPal branding? In my opinion, I think the new design is very unprofessional and lack of consistency. My very first reaction to the new PayPal redesign was "What happened to PayPal? Got hacked!?" PayPal has made such a drastic change that it doesn’t even look or feel like PayPal (the PayPal that we used to). I think it will take us a while to adapt to the new design. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying change is bad. Changes are good if the results are positive. Here are my thoughts on the new PayPal design…
PayPal logo redesign
Visually, there isn’t much change in the new logo. You can read the details on the logo redesign from the PayPal blog. UnderConsideration - Brand New also has an interesting article on how the new PayPal is created in simple 7 steps.
I find the old PayPal logo works very well on various backgrounds, where as the new logo doesn’t provide good contrast on color background. Let’s take a look the new and old PayPal logo on various background colors.
Why is this so important?
Don’t forget not all websites are using white background. What if the website’s backgound is the same color as the PayPal blue? Then, one of the words will be invisible (see image below).
Site Redesign
In general, I agree the new design look more cleaner. But, does it work? Not really…
Menu - CSS bug?
I’m not sure if it was intentional or a CSS bug. Take a closer look at the main menu, notice there is a 2px bottom margin?
On some internal pages, the 2px margin disappeared. Bug or inconsistency?
Gradient login box
The metallic gradient inside the login box is very dark which created low contrast between the text and the background. People with low contrast or dim monitor will have problem reading the small text.
Web 1.0 arrows
The glossy menu is very Web 2.0 contemporary, but the arrows and cut-corners are back to 1999?
Why Flash?
At first I thought it was Javascript, then later I realized it is Flash. Why use Flash for that simple animation/transition when it could be done the same with Javascript? Couldn’t they do better animation with Flash?
Inconsistent stylesheets
Just click around the top level navigation, you will find there are two different stylesheets (one stylesheet used Arial font, another one used Verdana font). For example, let’s take a look at the Financial Products and Request Money page:
In term of frontend pages, the PayPal site is quite small, so I’m very disappointed that they can’t even manage the stylesheets properly. It seems like PayPal is still using the old stylesheet on some of the pages.
Again, inconsistent search form:
Spam page?
Take a look at the Products & Services page, doesn’t it look like those parked domains filled with spam links (the middle portion)?
What do you think?
Please cast your vote and share your comments on the new PayPal redesign.
Loading …Advanced CSS Menu Vector Polishing Techniques
Comments
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There are 135 comments (+Add)
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Post Your Comments
135 moellernr1
June 16th, 2008 at 2:15 pm
What a great page. Inspirational. But it would be great to see examples of interesting corporate/business homepages - if there are any…
134 kitap özetleri http://www.kitap-ozetlerim.com
May 27th, 2008 at 2:29 pm
thanks for sharing this article
133 Dan http://xdnet.co.uk
April 28th, 2008 at 11:58 am
You have reviewed it well, and taken it to pieces, alot of the errs i never notice
Dan
132 Anush http://www.logodesignnewzealand.co.nz
April 24th, 2008 at 5:54 am
I don;t like the picture they used on there home page at all. I feel useless to depict anything to me………Girls legs showing she is in relax mood nothing good for the professional site. As this site deal with millions of dollars only this image is not gives the home page professional looks
131 JNDCG
April 4th, 2008 at 9:55 am
interesting… I actually noticed some of those very same things. Thought I was being too particular; but that’s how I am with most everything :-\
130 Emanuel
March 26th, 2008 at 2:08 am
Great article. I always wondered how come that these huge, rich companies get stuck with bad designs. But then I remembered that most of the time, as a designer, you have to first save your client from his own bad taste.
129 computer jobs http://www.bokrin.com
March 18th, 2008 at 4:01 am
The old logo looks really better then new.
128 Pay-Pal.biz http://www.pay-pal.biz
March 17th, 2008 at 5:49 am
nice article. Thanx!
127 Technology News http://www.londoninfotech.net
February 22nd, 2008 at 8:36 am
yeah…really bug full !
126 Lexu http://www.lexubusiness.ro
February 12th, 2008 at 12:04 pm
thanks for sharing this article.