Changes in VKontakte. New design "VKontakte": how to enable it now

Today, let's conduct a full review of the new design of the social network Vkontakte 2016. We will analyze all the features and try to answer popular questions. Work on the new design of VKontakte was carried out for more than a year and a half and was presented to us on April 1, 2016.

The developers claim that every function of the social network has been carefully studied and recreated. If you have not yet changed the design of your account, the administration Vkontakte assures that the end of 2016, all users of the social network will switch to a new design.

Let's now analyze in more detail what the new VC developers have offered us. First of all, it should be noted that the new design is unified for all existing Internet devices and optimized for a screen resolution of 1366 by 768 pixels.

It is impossible to determine what exactly has changed. Since the entire site Vkontakte updated radically! The background table is much darker, while only the elements with information (for example, a wall, a page, an audio recording section, etc.) remain white. The blue bar at the top of the site now occupies the entire width of the screen. And it does not contain more tabs, but it has a logo, notifications (bell), music and a user profile button.

Significantly increased the fonts, and the page itself has become almost the entire screen. The dialogue window is now divided in half: your chat rooms and dialogs are displayed on the left, and the selected dialog is opened on the right in detail. Now it became easy to respond to a new message or quickly switch between several dialogs.

Your unread messages are marked with a blue dot, which will disappear after reading. Your posts are now marked with either your last name or first name, but simply “you.” A green dot on a friend's avatar indicates that it is online.

Significantly changed notifications, they are under the bell in the blue bar of the site. Here you will find applications for, Likes, information about upcoming events, and so on.

In interesting now you can immediately subscribe to updates, so as not to miss important news. You will be reminded of them by the bell of notifications, located near the red dot.

There have been changes in the section "Audio recordings".

Now you can create your playlists while listening to music using the Play Next function, which will appear when you hover over an audio recording. A column appeared on the right: my audio recordings, friends updates and other tabs.

Globally changed the news feed: the pictures have become larger in size and more visible. In addition, a right-hand column appeared in which you can choose what interests you at the moment (photos, videos, communities ...)

It should be understood that the social network VKontakte is very interested in its users: where we go, what we comment or “like”. Based on the information collected about us, VC offers us information of the communities, and displays them first.

The display of pictures has also been completely updated, now it looks more like Facebook. The image is now much larger; a column with comments has appeared on the right. To date, you can freely read comments without scrolling the tape under the photo.

The left menu has become very universal, some sections have disappeared, but at the same time clear icons have appeared. And the most frequently used functions are duplicated in the blue bar of the site.

As for viewing our account, now it has become much more convenient! It is divided into two blocks: the user’s fixed information is to the left, and the wall itself scrolls to the right. You can view the wall at least until the very end, with friends, groups, news will always be at hand ...

P.S. I guess this information is useful to you!

P.S.S. More clearly update Vkontakte 2016 can be seen in this video! I hope for your feedback!

The other day Mail.ru Group announced the imminent update of the design of one of the most popular sites in Russia. It should be noted that the site design is changing globally for the first time since the existence of the resource since 2006.
  Actually, the old design remained to exist in the spirit of the 2000s. At various times, various web studios and just amateur designers worked on the project. But with the departure of the founder Pavel Durov, the site remained the same.

Today, 10 years after the date of its foundation, an open beta test of the new design was officially announced.

Officially from the press release Vkontakte:

Work on the new design was carried out over the past year and a half. We carefully studied, thought through and re-created each element. Today we are taking the next step and moving to a new level of site development to make it more modern.

The main principle of the new VKontakte design is that it looks and recognizable on all devices. A website user can easily find the necessary section in a mobile application and vice versa.

We increased the width of the screen and fonts, got rid of unnecessary details and made the site easier to read. There is additional space for new useful features. We also updated the left menu: we shortened the names of the items, added icons and moved upward the most popular sections - News and Messages.

Ok, in fact they didn't just do this. In fact, the new design of VKontakte is a whole compilation of the rest of the top social networks. However, first things first.

I managed to join the testers community. Therefore, I propose to look at what a new design is.

Let's start with the main page. Now it looks like this:

All blocks are kept unchanged. It began to look more modern, it pleases. OK, go ahead.
  Let's look at the news feed.

But groups / communities:

But the most interesting is photo albums. Here's how they began to look like:

Oops, what about Facebook? Here's what:

Hmm .. Or, for example, how the photos look in the desktop version of Instagram:

And there is a lot of this in Vkontakte: 3 columns, like Facebook, the recommended news feed is refined, again like FB, the top notification bar is like ... well, you understand.

Vkontakte likes to learn from someone else's experience and, in principle, there is nothing wrong with that. After all, if you recall the very appearance of Vk in Russia - this is originally a copy of Facebook. Since then, Vkontakte has developed well. But after 10 years have already passed, I thought that it was already possible to do something different.

What should I say about the new design

On the one hand, the news is good and should be received positively by the public.

According to the international research group TNS, the rating of the most popular sites in RuNet at the time of this writing is as follows:

Vk.com ranks 3rd in traffic among all sites on the Russian Internet. This is despite the fact that the first 2 places were taken by corporations with a multitude of internal projects, the traffic on which is summarized. Undoubtedly, VC is simply obliged to keep up with the times. It was impossible to exist in the same form since the founding of the social network for 10 years. Yes, and talk about the redesign has been going on for the past 5 years for sure.

The Internet is one of the fastest growing branches of the media space. He is still quite young, and any company on the market needs to be able to adapt in time for changing the industry. Competition today is almost a fundamental factor in the development of any project. And while Vkontakte manages to keep the lead mainly due to free audio and video content, he will remain the leader. And it's not even that he is so good at everything. Just the rest of Russian social networks worse.

It is clear that loyal users will unconditionally accept any redesign and rebranding. I agree, of course, the new design is in many ways good, it is many times better than the previous one. And let it be somewhat unusual, but the company retained all the navigation and visual arrangement of the elements. Therefore, a new species is a matter of habit.

But let's take a quick look at what third-party web designers proposed to do with the site in 2014 as part of the contest for the best new design by Vkontakte. The work of one of the contestants is the current new vk and took it into development. Let's see what others have done:

1. Here is another copy of the previous version of Facebook. In the future, FB abandoned 2 columns on the wall. I like this option.

2. This is the same old Contact, but with updated fonts and colors. Cute

3. It looks more like an Android app for tablets. Also ok:

In general, I liked more other works that did not participate in the competition. If you look at the social network for designers dribbble.com and walk along the profiles, you can come across interesting options:

1. For example, this one is my favorite:

by @Kyril

2. Or here. Non-standard approach, I like it. The only pity is that with the example of Messages, I would like to take a look at the main one.

by @spapp

Well, or the case with designer Artemy Lebedev, about whom he spoke. I do not presume to judge the work they have accomplished, and this is far from the final result. But, objectively, even in them the uniqueness is traced. Even then it looked like an attempt to deviate from established norms. Of course, Lebedev's designs can be treated differently and often they are similar in style, however, if we talk about an idea, the idea was there, and it remained there in the drafts.

And I would like to note another important thing in my opinion that this project needs: a new functionality. New - this means a fundamentally new, not peeped into the door crack. Honestly, I do not doubt the competence of the developers and managers of Vkontakte, I am sure that they can do any, even the most difficult tasks. The point is in the organization of development, in the very idea. I am not inclined to idealize the merits of the former owner of VK Pavel Durov, but I want to note that this person knows how to work with ideas, defend them and fight for their releases. I will explain: for a moment, the person, having left vk.com, just picked up and made a new instant messenger for mobile devices. Nothing surprising, just an instant messenger. It would seem, why he was needed when there is Whatsapp and Viber. He did not even plan to enter the Russian market with his development. The application still exists in English and Russian localization was released only recently under the guise of an add-on. He simply took the messenger, invented bots for it and announced the full encryption of all incoming messages. Everything! There was no advertising project, except for a few interviews. Man did not need to do anything else.

Reputation + word of mouth + quality product = result.

And even if you look at the statistics of users of the Telegram application today (and there are already more than 100 million per month), it is already clear who is able to press the competing giants, one of which was recently acquired by Facebook.

So this is what I am leading to: the appearance of the site is the face of the project. And here I have to state that the face of the new Vkontakte has not changed, but it still remains the twin of its brethren, except that this twin has matured and matured.

Is the new design similar to Facebook? Yes, it looks like. Well this is because the management of the social network nevertheless decided to change the interface, which has already become boring - it tritely lost its popularity. And it’s bad because the design was really “stupidly copied” (although, for convenience, it turned out much better than in the case of Facebook). It would be much more interesting to see something radically new, and not just redone from another site.

News section

It is clear that the design of the news feed is completely new, but, as for me, here, first of all, you should pay attention to the new feature, which is called “Show interesting news first”. This is the very “smart” tape about which Julia in one of the latest digests. The algorithm itself determines which news is most important for you, and shows them in the first place. You can return to the usual list by simply sliding the corresponding slider on the right side of the screen.

As for the lists, they are moved to the right from the top. In principle, something is done in the FB as well, just there are other parameters. In general, this approach seems quite logical, because the records in the tape have become more noticeable.

Photo view mode

Also, the photo view mode has been completely redone. Now it is horizontal, and to the right of the image there is a block with comments. In VK, they called it a magazine layout, but all of this reminds us of the photo viewer in Odnoklassniki (don't even ask how we know it). But in fact it is quite convenient, because now you can scroll through the comments, keeping the image itself in front of your eyes.

Why was chosen such a format (horizontal)? Most likely, to better display on widescreen monitors, which are now the majority.

Display notifications

In the header, next to the search line, now there is a special icon that opens a pop-up window with all notifications. Made quite convenient, because now you can at the right page in parallel to watch notifications about new likes, friend requests, birthdays and other things. Switching to a separate window is not necessary.

On individual pages (your friends, for example), you can subscribe to receive notifications - as soon as they have a new entry or photo. If there are new notifications, a special red indicator will appear near the bell-shaped label.

New work with dialogues

As for the dialogue section, it is completely rewritten from scratch (well, at least that's what they say in the company's blog). The main thing is that now a list of all chats, as well as an open dialogue is placed in one window. Purely in theory, this should allow for faster response to new messages. If these same messages are not read, they are marked with a blue dot.

In general, all this looks quite beautiful. This "vkontakte" just want to use. Most likely, this is due to the fact that the previous design has become boring, but here is already something new.

Minor changes in other categories

Of course, the design was altered everywhere (even in the settings), but it is also worth noting that the font and page width were increased. Now (in theory, exactly) the site should look more attractive on widescreen monitors. Also, the sections in the left column were changed in places. The first three places are occupied by “My Page”, “News” and “Messages”. And most importantly - now there is no link to Pavel Durov's page from the bottom ...

We are waiting for all this to reach the final level, because today it’s all not working in the best way (smoothness leaves much to be desired). Have you already tried new VKontakte design? If so, be sure to share your opinion in the comments!

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Redesign Vkontakte: detail and everything!

How to update Vkontakte?

What is the significant difference?

The main attraction of the new design is that the site itself has become wider (instead of 765 pixels now 975). Did you pay attention to the gaping white voids on the sides of your VK page? Now such irritating irrationality will no longer cut the eye. The new beta version provides for filling the available space at the expense of a block of useful functions.

The "Messages" section has become almost unrecognizable, because it was rewritten dramatically. Now you will see an active chat and a list of your conversations. In order for all this to be as readable as possible, the width of the department is increased to 1090 pixels (along with the side menu). Quite convenient, because now you do not have to go back every time to connect an additional conversation.

What does this look like?

Messages

View photos

Videotapes

Audio recordings

Albums

Page

news

Now you know how to install the new format of your favorite network. Did you like the redesign of VK? Post in comments, and also read about - it is cool!