First Major LinkedIn Product Redesign In Five Years 

After five years, LinkedIn has finally got round to their much-needed redesign and added a ton of interesting products, in what is quite a sizeable update rather than just a cosmetic overhaul.

Sure, they have tried to make the platform easier to navigate, more intuitive, and all the other buzzwords we hear whenever anyone refreshes their website. But, this has been combined with updates to how users search and navigate the site, changes to messaging and the introduction of Stories.

With an active audience of more than 700 million people, there’s a vast audience that LinkedIn wants to better unlock.

Ryan Roslansky, LinkedIn, CEO

“We’re redesigning LinkedIn to make your LinkedIn experience easy, inclusive, enjoyable, and most importantly to put the community front and centre.”

According to LinkedIn, this new design will be:

• Simpler
• More modern
• More intuitive
• Allow for easier navigation and discovery
• Feature a streamlined search
• Feature a dark mode

Although already users are railing slightly against its rather Facebook-ish new look and feel.

Cleaned Up

These new changes are supposed to embody what Joann Wu, Senior Director of Product Design, calls ‘the inclusive, warm, and welcoming community of individuals’.

What that means, in reality, is a cleaner LinkedIn and increased ease of use. The colour palette is updated to include more ‘warm’ shades as well as blue and green hues that direct users to actions and selection.

Buttons have been rounded-off to provide the user with a ‘friendlier’ experience – what could possibly be more heart warming than soft edges?

Focus will be shifted from the platform to the user via a reduction in the amount of ‘LinkedIn blue’ that appears on screen as well as space, size and typographic structure alterations.

Extra whitespace has been added, with dividing lines and decorative icons reduced.

Another feature of the redesign is the focus on accessibility, achieved thanks to bigger touch targets, text scaling and an increase in contrast to improve readability.

Better LinkedIn Search & Discovery

Tough times in the job market have seen searches increase by 15% on LinkedIn, and the platform has jumped on this and wants to make it easier for users to find what they’re really looking for.

They’re doing this in four ways:

1. Better organisation of search results
2. Streamlining the filter process and adding keyword filters to the mobile app
3. Increased personalisation of search results
4. Calls-to-action have been added in search

Search results will no longer be limited to just people or companies; they’ll also include courses, events and more content, as LinkedIn looks at life beyond recruitment, post-COVID.

With the increase in the amount of content that’s created on LinkedIn, a simple search will now yield far more results than it previously would – as well as the most significant change of the lot, Stories.

Hitching To The Stories Bandwagon

That’s right, LinkedIn have finally jumped on the bandwagon after initially testing in Australia earlier this year and introduced stories.

LinkedIn might seem like an odd fit for a platform that prides itself on being business orientated, but the boffins who introduced this feature really think it’s going to work.

Just like on Snapchat, Instagram and Facebook, Stories disappear 24 hours after posting.

Kiran Prasad, VP Products, LinkedIn

“We see this as a great option for you to use to express professional moments with your LinkedIn network without worrying that the content is permanently attached to your profile.”

To create a story, follow these steps:

• Record the video or take the photo directly through the app
• Upload video (up to 20s) or image
• Add a sticker and / or text
• Mention users with @

Stories are supposed to be a virtual ‘watercooler’ moment, but that fails to differentiate itself from Instagram and Facebook in many areas; except there’ll be fewer thirst traps. Alongside professional stories, LinkedIn users are encouraged to create Stories that show their life around work, or even out of work.

If that might be confusing, LinkedIn recommends that stories posted are professional in nature and make it easy to respond to, for example, an insight from your workday. For example, “Here’s me whisper-shouting at my kids on mute on a Zoom new business pitch”.

One Final Change

Finally, there are some changes to messaging. There’s increased app integration and you can now video call someone from within your private messages as Zoom, Microsoft Teams and BlueJeans. You can also use emojis, delete messages, edit them and flag inappropriate content.

Stories and these updates have initially been rolled out in U.S. Canada, France, Australia, Brazil, Netherlands, and the UAE but are coming to global audiences in the coming days.