Although some of you may still not have had LinkedIn’s new interface rolled out to you, many of us have. With “improved” features come the inevitable and frustrating questions.

Where did my stuff go?

How do I navigate this?

I used to like this feature. Is it still there?

In this post I’ll give you a brief synopsis of LinkedIn’s interface changes, where to go to find them and a valuable link to a video that spells it all out blow by blow. Let’s jump right in.

Colors:
Although it’s not so much of a change that’s meaningful, Linked has changed it’s color scheme so that the experience between the web portal and the mobile app are more closely aligned. Gone is the blue, black, white and gray and in it’s place is the familiar mobile dark teal color. The icons and location descriptions are also similar in the web and mobile app (think “Me” instead of “Profile”). Overall the layout is cleaner and more appealing. So much for the lipstick.

Home Page:
When you log in you now get a nice snapshot of your profile, including your picture, title and a description of what you do as well as a synopsis of who’s viewed your profile and how many people have viewed your posts.

One important change is that the “Share an article, photo, or update” and the “Write an article” now share the same box, although they are still separate functions. Upon first encounter it can be a bit confusing since it looks like one function. Simply click in each field to perform one task or the other. Clicking the “Write an article” field also takes you into a new and more robust “Publisher” function.

Timeline:
For all intents and purposes, it’s the same in each version. No discernible changes from the previous version.

Profile Settings:
Profile settings in the old interface are discovered by clicking your picture to the far right. In the new interface your profile settings are found under the “Me” icon. Here you will find your Account settings (Privacy & Settings, Help Center, Language) and Manage settings (Manage Job Postings, Company Page and Sign out).

My Network:
My Network has been redesigned to simply show you the number of connections in your network with a hyperlinked “See all” option to view everyone in your network. One big change when you view all your contacts is that you can send a message and block a contact but your can, regrettably, no longer tag someone. Since tagging is gone you can now only sort by recently added, first name and last name.

There is also a “Grow your network” link that allows you to import your email list, send and invitation to invite someone or upload a file. My favorite feature when connecting/inviting someone in the new UI is that the heinous “where did you work with them” and a litany of other interrogations that you used to go through is now gone. Find someone, click connect, add a message if you like and send. Simple and doesn’t force you give up your first born in order to connect with someone. The alumni in your network can now only be found through search.

Inbox:
Inbox functionality is essentially the same except that the icon is now called Messaging.

Notifications:
Notifications is now a bell icon instead of a flag and is better because it gets its own page. This separation helps cut down on the visual noise present in the old version, so more streamlined messaging and replying may actually increase communication and activity in your notification space.

Where’d the Education Button Go?
It’s gone. Well, sort of. You can get to education in the Learning section by clicking the More icon to the far right.

Deeper Dive:
If you want to see a side by side comparison and a more in depth discussion of LinkedIn changes, go to this LinkedIn To Business page, scroll down and check out Viveka von Rosen’s thorough 12 minute video.

Viveka’s Conclusion:
“For those who have never really used the more advanced features of LinkedIn, I think you will find the new UI more intuitive and easier to use. For those of us who were really active using LinkedIn for our lead generation, well, we’ll probably have to upgrade to Sales Navigator (now Sales Solutions.)”