Google unveiled this new welcome screen at the widget summit, but it now appears to be up and running everywhere.
You will see this screen now when you go the iGoogle page and try to customize it if you are not signed in. This is a very new user friendly set up. The last interface they used was basically a big huge box with a million choices on it. New users probably got confused alot by it.
The new impoved system is that the entire page gets greyed out, except the box you see above. Very smart and very useful . I feel they will likely have a great deal more of iGoogle users from this, and will certainly see their customization numbers soar.
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Pat, I saw that a few weeks ago and blogged about it asking if anyone else had seen it. I think you’re the first other person I’ve noticed who got the message. It seemed kind of aggressive to me. I wasn’t signed into iGoogle at the time and took it as a way to push it on me.
I also noticed you couldn’t close the window without making a selection. Google was blocking the ability to make a search until you selected something iGoogle.
Yeah, they have tested it fr awhile, but now it is always there. On the “blocking” that is an interesting point, however it is designed to only show up in a very specific instance (the first time you use it) but now that I think about it, it does show up in other situations. Very good point.