YouTube big redesign which beta version was available for user testing in late January was officially released yesterday. The cleaner look of the video portal is a part of a greater plan to simplify the site. The initial idea was generated of user feedback and testing and aims to keep people as long as possible in the site.

In a morning conference at the YouTube headquarters in San Bruno, Calif., YouTube UI designer Julian Frumar explained that the site was simply not working like it should with the addition of extra features over the years. He added that there were too many elements on the screen that were slowing down page views and that were flooding people with too much information. In other words, YouTube was getting complicated and inefficient.

The other aspect of the problem was that YouTube had two distinct groups of users. The first group includes those users who wanted a simple, easy to navigate video-centric portal white the second group wanted numerous links, buttons, and so on.

The redesign is an attempt to satisfy the requirements of both groups. Besides, YouTube new vision strives to be more intuitive for newcomers.

But the redesign of the page is designed and developed not only to facilitate users who watch but also to be friendlier to users who upload content. If a video owner has created other videos, these now show up on the top of the page without cluttering up the sides with many other thumbnails and links. Besides, YouTube gives content owners an opportunity to add branding, be it a profile picture or a logo above each video player--regardless of whether that user is viewing that video from a content owner's channel page. offering this, the company hopes to stimulates more subscriptions, and give users a better sense of who uploaded the content.

Along with the improved viewing experience, YouTube has also made it easier to track the popularity of a video. The view counter can now be expanded to show insight analytics, along with a timeline of how the popularity has evolved. Frumar says this option simply was not being explored because it was hidden. In the redesign this function is much visible and people are expected to find and use it more often.

YouTube's strategy is to encourage people to realize how powerful they are as users. it considers "power" users. In fact, these are people who do more than just play the video, do a search, or leave a comment. They're the ones who bookmark videos, send the video to their social networks, record video replies, subscribe to video feeds, create playlists, and browse videos by location.

At the same time, the look of YouTube seems a bit boring. For example, the change of the five-star rating system is a failure. In its place are thumbs up and thumbs down buttons. This is a change that means all previous ratings are converted into "like" and "dislike" percentages. These will replace the five-star rating view across the site, as well as mobile devices, a change YouTube is making to its API. Though as Frumar explained, most people would either rate videos with five stars (meaning it was the best) or one star, and that very few were using the two- to four-star ratings.

What may be the most important task of the redesign though, is keeping people on the site. This goes hand in hand with helping casual users become power users. It's also to get YouTube taking up a bigger part of people's days. As YouTube spokesperson Chris Dale explained to bloggers, "People only spend 15 minutes a day on YouTube, but they spend five hours watching TV." YouTube is trying to even up the score.