Pinterest tests new look with bigger pins, restructured navigation

Pinterest is readying a test that will alter the inspirational site with a tweaked navigation, bigger pins, and an overall faster site experience, the company announced Monday.

The experimental Pinterest look will roll out to a small group of people as the startup attempts to help its users get more information about pins they care about, a spokesperson told CNET. The company plans to release the design more widely once it works out the bugs.

Pinterest is a social network for clipping recipes, fashion finds, housewares, and other aspirational digital goods to collections called "boards." The product, which first launched in 2010, had a phenomenal 2012 and ranked as the sixth most popular social network with 27.2 million unique U.S. visitors by year's end, according to Nielsen. Now, the San Francisco-based company is getting ready to mix things up a bit.

With the redesign, Pinterest.com will test its navigational elements contained inside a red-button drop-down menu on the left-hand side that offers members shortcut access to the feed, popular pins, and categories of pins. The structure replaces the current "Following," "Categories," "Everything," and "Popular" links atop the homepage.

Pins also appear bigger and bolder than before on more dynamic pages. The new pin window features the pin, other pins from the same board, and additional boards the pin was pinned to, all alongside a smattering of related pins.

From the looks of it, Pinterest has opted for a design-driven approach to get people to explore pins with reckless abandon.