ikea website gets a new look

logged onto ikea's us site today and hey, it's brand spanking new! at a glance it looks way better than before. the site seem easier to navigate - with product tabs at the top, replacing the old side bar.

a lot more vibrant with 8 small boxes of news below the main feature. also expanded online shopping pages.

but i've never had a problem with how the old site looked. i only hated its search function to death. so i was keen to find out if they fixed it. whaddaya know? the search function is totally removed from the site.

what is available now is a search for items by name. click on the alphabet and a long, long list of product names appear. scroll through it and click on the item you want. perhaps it does diminish the frustration of having an 'item not found' message but it takes way too much time scanning tiny type. especially since i have to look up product names and links frequently. so this is a downgrade for me. the old search function suddenly seems good. as bad as it was it still gave me results 7 out of 10 tries.

go to ikea's new website and give it a whirl and let me know what you think.