Welcome to the New Information Architecture!

In early June, we launched a new way of organizing site information and navigating through the site, known as the Information Architecture (IA). Before launching the new IA, we had created a test site in April for users to preview the IA, which was created using feedback from focus groups and one-on-one usability tests. We further modified the test site with user comments from surveys and emails. As a precautionary measure during the outage, we removed the new IA, although further analysis provided no evidence that it was related to the outage.

Now, we have created a new, revised test site, using our users' feedback from when we first launched the new IA in June. Please take a look at the new, revised test site and give us comments via the survey links on many of the new pages or by emailing us at newebay@ebay.com

To go to the test site, go to http://www-new.ebay.com or click here. Be careful, the test site is a real site; if you bid on an item, your bid is recorded and you have a binding contract with the seller. The eBay site is a continual work in progress, and we will continue to work with you to make it better and easier to use.

The most common question people have for us is "why did eBay make this change? If it ain't broke, don't fix it." We wanted to make eBay easier to use for everyone, including newer eBay members who may have had difficulty with the old site. The easier we make eBay to use, the more people are likely to bid on items and create more business for our sellers. We're committed to the success of both our buyers and sellers, and we think the new IA will help both. As always, though, site stability is our first priority. So we plan to phase in the new and improved IA carefully and over time.

If you are a Featured Auction seller, we made some changes due to usability issues with the old Featured Auctions format (the old format was incompatible with some of our users' browsers). Currently, there is no change to the Category Featured Auction format. However, for the Featured Auction format, you now have an additional area in which your listings could be showcased. Your featured auctions could be showcased on the home page, the main category page (a new page), or the category pages. In addition, the all Featured Auctions section is available from the navigation bar and highlighted on the site map.