Another redesign of lds.org?

It looks like the church is again experimenting with changing the look and feel of lds.org. I logged into study more general conference talks this morning and happened to use a different computer and web browser than I have been for the past few weeks. When I navigated to the General Conference article I noticed that the page was different and they're trying out some new kind of navigation at the top. Study tools didn't initially appear, either, but I finally got the toolbar to appear after going to the page a few times. I logged in with a different web browser and saw the familiar look and feel, so I guess they're testing to see how people react and one season got selected to try it out.

The new navigation design has some type of animation that is visually displeasing to me.

/sigh/
I need the discontinued Lesson Schedules and Newsletter tools a lot more than I need yet another new page navigation and site redesign. The project prioritization at the church is very strange. Take the programmers working on the redesign and assign them to improving the Newsletter and Lesson Schedules tools. That will bless church members more than eye candy.

I think they're trying to have consistent branding across all of the Church sites and apps, for desktop and mobile, which in a way is good – it means designers in various Church departments are working together, which means less duplication of effort and a better use of Church resources. You'll notice that the "light rays" on the left of the menu matches the app icons for Gospel Library and LDS Media Library. Icons are also becoming the same across the board (for example, the same headphones icon is being used everywhere to indicate audio). The Seminary page has the different design as well, and to me it looks even clunkier there than on the General Conference page.

I hope it's still in the experimentation/testing phase, because I don't like the main LDS.org menu being hidden by default, and I also don't like the menu background being white (it doesn't stand out enough from the rest of the page). The hamburger menu has always bothered me on websites, because it never follows the same pattern as the same menu on mobile apps, where it originated (i.e. when you tap the hamburger menu icon, a panel should slide out at the side of the page).

If they get things consistent across everything, that would be nice. It seems they've been trying to do that in the past, but the only sites that get updated are ones they're working on and they don't get everything updated before they do another redesign.

I also think it would be helpful to have consistent branding and experience between the mobile apps and web sites...like bring the term "Gospel Library" to the web site so it's more obvious things are synchronized and where to find the content you're looking for. And maybe even renaming the web site directory to LDS Tools Directory. Even with all the tools and things, I'm still amazed how many ward members never think of looking at the directory to find member information. Oops, I'm getting started on another topic and I better stop before I jump off a cliff and write another opinion piece