YouTube has unveiled a drastic overhaul to the site, with a greater emphasis on it’s channels, and a cleaner homepage.You might be thinking why a site as popular as YouTube, with over 3 million views a day, would feel the need to unveil such a major redesign. (Of course that’s never stopped Facebook now has it?)

On the heels of their announcement that they are adding over 100 new channels to their lineup, coming from “well known personalities and content providers”, the YouTube team wants to place a much greater emphasis on professionally produced content through its channel lineup (and to the dismay of some users, away from the homemade videos that the site is known for)

So what will you now find when you head to the new-look YouTube?

New Homepage Design

As we said, it’s all about the channels now, and they are now much more prominently displayed on the left side of the homepage. A list of your current subscriptions are now at the top, along with easy access to your friends’ Facebook and Google+ videos, which can now be viewed directly on the YouTube home page if you link your social media accounts to the site. You can also browse YouTube’s suggested channels and and customize your lineup. The new homepage feed launched earlier this year is now front and center on the home page, with the most recent videos from channels you are subscribed to shown prominently.

Customizable Channels

The look of channels themselves is also updated, and according to YouTube’s developers this will make it easier to find the videos you like.   There are different templates meant to help all uploaders, whether they producer one video a week or thousands. The Crafty Gemini posted this video to explain the new features, and you can watch Zack King’s video below to see how he’s using the new layout.

If you want to play around with the new Channel design, head over to YouTube’s help center.

New Overall Design

To merge the homepage and Channels design, YouTube has given a once-over to the whole site. h In July, YouTube unveiled an experimental design called Cosmic Panda, using user feedback to improve their overall design. Now the site is  cleaner and simpler site, with a consistent gray background, bigger video thumbnails, and a more streamlined watch page.

Some video producers have come in favor of the new design, but there is plenty of push back from users on YouTube’s blog. It remains to been seen if there are further changes in store,  especially since just last year
they unveiled at the time what they called one of the biggest redesigns in history.
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