DigitalBeat

Professional networking site LinkedIn says it’s experimenting with a new layout. The redesign has only been rolled out for some users, so I’m not seeing it in my own account yet, but the company’s blog post suggests it’s making subtle improvement.

Right now, the site’s navigation is split between a box on the left hand side of the page (with collapsible menus for things like your groups and contacts), and a navigation bar at the top of the page. Now all of the navigation occurs at the top of the page. When you click on any of the navigation options, you get a list of all the different pages you can jump to or actions you can take.

Judging from the screenshots that LinkedIn has shared, the changes won’t be as immediately noticeable as, say, some of Facebook’s more dramatic redesigns. But they should make it easier to find your way around the site and let you see more content on your screen before having to scroll. Now, I rarely do anything more on the site other than confirm connections, so the clumsy navigation hasn’t felt like a big pain for me. But maybe I’ll start exploring LinkedIn’s full functionality now that I can find my way around.

ReadWriteWeb spotted another aspect of the design that may be a plus for LinkedIn: Ads show up more prominently.

Oh, and if you have any comments on the redesign, the company says it’s still tinkering, so you can leave feedback at the blog post that I linked to above.

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