Blogger's New Interface

A couple weeks ago, I noticed a little bubble on my Blogger dashboard saying something like "try out our new interface!" So I did. And I think I'm still getting used to it a little, but overall I really like the re-design. Here's an image of one of my free fonts posts when it was in progress in both the old interface and the new one.

BEFORE

AFTER

The layout is much different from the old Blogger layout, but it seems like it will be just as user-friendly once I get used to where all the options are. Some new features I noticed...

• It's easier to access the list of posts, which honestly, is the page on Blogger I visit all the time. When I open Blogger, it's where I go first. So it's nice to have it nearby.
• The scheduling posts feature is much more obvious (before it was hidden in an expandable menu), and it now also has a calendar so you can easily select what day you want the post published.
• A "revert to draft" button on the list of posts. That will be helpful if I accidentally schedule a post I'm not done with yet. Before, you had to edit the post and hit the "save as draft" button. This new button right on the post list page saves a step. 
• Numbers of posts, comments, and pageviews are all more visible which is nice.

I think the only thing I don't like about how the layout works is that the number of comments per post isn't as obvious to see.

Design-wise, I think this interface is much better than the previous one. Here's what I like about the design:

• All the gray. A lot Blogger is gray now. Hooray!
• Orange. It's a nice, bright accent color with the gray and white.
• Much less blue. The navy blue was too obvious a combination with orange. I like the gray + orange scheme much better. Blue is still present in some text, but it's more subtle and the neutral grays and white really take center stage.
• The typography. I think (unless I'm mistaken) that Blogger chose a new main font, which is great. Reminds me of what Seth Godin said about typographic creativity on the web. Uniqueness is good.

And downsides to the design? I'm not so crazy about how the post editor box is "floating" in that big gray area. I like that white space is used, but it seems like there could be some way to make it look a little more anchored. And also, the spacing between the posts on the view posts page is a little too big for me. They look a little overly spread out. But these errors are minor, and overall, I think the design is a good move.

If you use Blogger, do you like the new interface? Or even if you're not a blogger, do you think it was a good move based on the screenshots and my comments?