Three days ago, Yahoo’s official blog encouraged its readers to "start wearing purple."  Early this morning, the company began heeding its own request by unveiling some new Yahoo homepages.  Test versions present a purple corporate logo along with (arguably more important) things like a fresh layout and new features.

If you live in the U.S., U.K., France, or India, there’s a chance you’ll get to see these changes for yourself.  For anyone who’s either not in these areas or not seeing a new Yahoo.com, here’s a screenshot and an explanation from Tapan Bhat, a senior vice president.

 Experimental Yahoo Homepage

Bhat writes, "We’re testing a dashboard area (off to the left) that will let you add previews of your favorite Yahoo! and non-Yahoo! services – starting with checking for new mail from multiple accounts (initially Yahoo! Mail, AOL Mail and Gmail, with more to come), weather forecasts, and local events."  A different mockup tosses a calendar, Flickr, and eBay into the mix.

Then, "We’re always hearing how much people love the ‘Featured’ area of the page, so we’re going to keep enhancing that with more and more fresh, timely content you’re interested in from across the Web.  And of course we still have the prominent search box, with Yahoo! Search’s handy ‘Search Assist’ feature."

Yahoo’s taking a bit of a risk by making any changes; Yahoo.com’s traffic is one of the few bright spots within the company.  Still, its approach of testing small modifications is a smart way to go, and all users have been invited to give their opinions regarding what they want to see.