observations

Skype Journal: Skype.com's makeover: all about the downloads

June 22, 2005 10:18 AM
I'll let you go to Skype.com and see for yourself. They're continuing with the "drawn by an eight-year old" style, as Kevin Delaney calls it.

Why the redesign? You can figure it out by looking at how they chose to allocate the 20 square inches or so (100 square cms?) of visible page.

Let's ignore what's "below the fold," out of sight without scrolling.
  • The word "Skype" is mentioned 10 times that I can see, reinforcing that you are in the right place.
  • About 75%of the space invites you to download now, one way or another.
This design is very strong on positioning statements. In marketing communications, positioning is how you explain your value vs. alternatives that solve similar problems.
  • So they talk about being a "little" program for making "free" calls.
  • Bright friendly designs and colors.
  • No corners or sharp edges anywhere!
  • A handwriting font for most graphics, including the automated ones like the number of downloads.
Doesn't it contrast completely with the polished marketing junk piled on by every private telco and the bureaucratic formality of governmental PSTNs? It says "I'm small, happy, fun, non-threatening. Like me!"

Other changes:
  • They brought an excerpt of the Share blog onto the front page: "Stories." Nothing in the stories links backs to Share, though. Share is now the "community" home page.
  • They dropped the "minutes served" counter. Not so useful anymore. It will be a long time before it rolls over to 100 billion minutes served from its recent 10 billion. Would be nice if the remaining "downloads" counter linked to the statistics page.
  • Very few words on the home page.
  • Logo is smaller.
  • They use hand-drawn bubbles around page elements to direct attention.
  • I like how they say less on their home page. They summarize the business in three short declarative sentences:
"Skype is a little program for making free calls over the internet to anyone else who also has Skype. It’s free (and easy) to download and use and it works with most computers. Download Skype now or learn more about Skype (incl. screenshots)."
Another day, another makeover. Other updates to the site are covered by Jaanus on the Share blog.

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Comments (2)

Just FYI, the "drawn by an eight-year-old" comment was by no means negative. I like the style alot and think it really fits what Skype's trying to market: An easy to use tool for easy communications.

-kevin

Posted by: Kevin Delaney at June 22, 2005 3:31 PM

I think the chages are great, but the old layout had nothing wrong with it, in my opinion.

Still a bit too much like a kids's website for me :)... maybe just too many colors

Posted by: Gobala at June 23, 2005 10:46 AM