6 ms·

Facebook gets redesigned

19 points by wyldstallyn26 15y ago

sssparkkk 15y ago
Still rolling out apparently, I'm not getting the redesigned facebook.
- n9com 15y ago
  Count yourself lucky, it's like twitter, Facebook and google+ mixed into a dirty stew.
dadads 15y ago
I'm not one of the lucky few who gets to see it, unfortunately. Thus... Screenshots pl0x.
- deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]
- thatjoshguy 15y ago
  http://cl.ly/AJp0 http://cl.ly/AJp0 Having a 27" screen, I don't mind it. The only things that bug me is the triangle at the top of each post, and your profile pic up in the header (which now floats)
yuvadam 15y ago
As opposed to previous minor redesigns, this time Facebook has complete lost it. Basically what you're missing out on is "subscribing" to non-friends a-la-Twitter, horrible page layouts, numerous bugs, and way too many options and configurations. No Facebook, I do not want to manage my friends as if this is some kind of war room. Stop it. And someone please let Zuck know that we're not in 1999 anymore. Floating frames and detached sidebars are a UX abomination. Facebook is panicking and shooting in every direction.
- rhizome 15y ago
  I don't think so. I think they're backgrounding (side-bar'ing) random friend activity and designating the center stream for capital-c Content. Subscriptions, active threads, messaging from Like'd entities...the center box is commerce-oriented, the sidebar is for communications and for contributing to entities (comments, photos, statuses, etc.) defined as candidates for the center stream. I believe that the center stream will be where the half-page forced-Chevrolet ad is going to go, the changes of late all point in this direction. Think: monetization and profit.
  - tmcneal 15y ago
    Along those same lines, I'd bet that the floating section was added to get more eyeballs looking on the right side of the screen where the ads are.
    - rhizome 15y ago
      I'd say that along those lines, one aspect of the purpose of the sections is that the center is long-form attention and the right sidebar is short-form "constant check" attention. And just to put the button on it: I fully believe that FB is at least this cynical when it comes to the design of the page.
- danso 15y ago
  As someone else has already replied, this layout minimizes the managing of friends, at least in terms of prioritizing who you want to see most of. The curation seems to be based on how much you interact with another user. By definition, your best friends on FB are the ones you interact with most, or at least whose profiles you peruse the most often. And so with FB's curation algorithm, you don't have to generate a best friends list.
deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
ethank 15y ago
I hate to jump on a hater bandwagon, because I genuinely am a proponent of innovation, but: really? I think part of the usage of a web product should be to put you in a state of ease and enjoyment, not anxiety. The new FB puts me in an anxious state. I feel I'm always on the verge of missing something. Twitter I feel has balanced the checking-in anxiety issue with a compelling product experience, and I always felt that Facebook allowed me to maneuver through the information flow at a pace I wanted. Now, I'm presented with a realtime feed and a curated feed within the same context. I just get an anxious feeling looking at it. I think the technology is amazing behind it. To be able to do realtime information flow and processing on this scale is astounding. But I think product developers need to focus not only one the technology that drives the user experience, but the emotion they are trying to instill on the users.
- ethank 15y ago
  I retract my views in light of Timeline.
danpker 15y ago
I've had this for a couple of weeks (weirdly). You never get used to it and you always feel like you're missing something. Even more annoying is the little status updates in the top right, above the sidebar showing everyone of your friends recent activity (which I really liked) seems to have gone now.
- rhizome 15y ago
  You never get used to it and you always feel like you're missing something. I'll bet this is explicitly intentional as a driver to spend more time on Facebook.
- chadgeidel 15y ago
  Yes, and the changes have pretty much ruined the iOS app's "news" display.
wccrawford 15y ago
They took away the ability to show all events in chronological order? Ugh. I was trying to stay away from G+ for ethical reasons, but this... This might just drive me back.
- vasco 15y ago
  I'm very curious about the differences you think exist between the two services regarding ethics.
  - wccrawford 15y ago
    It's the whole Real Name debacle. It's been debated to death, though.
    - dfxm12 15y ago
      Facebook actually has the same policy.
      - wccrawford 15y ago
        Again, when Facebook bans someone, it doesn't destroy the rest of their online identity. And before you quote Google's policy on it, best do a search on the web for how it was actually handled.
        dfxm12 15y ago
        My comment isn't defending Google. I'm pointing out to you that by your standard, both companies are unethical, and there is really no reason to trust either. Just in case you didn't know Facebook's stance on real names...
        wccrawford 15y ago
        You have never heard me claim that Facebook was ethical.
n9com 15y ago
It feels like signing into AOL back in 1998!
wyldstallyn26 15y ago
For those who are not lucky enough (ha!) to enjoy the new design, here's a small glimpse: https://img.skitch.com/20110921-rfae5d2pera2ig7ugbupd4pf61.jpg https://img.skitch.com/20110921-rfae5d2pera2ig7ugbupd4pf61.j... It is mind-jarringly chaotic on my Home screen. Not wise.
- laconian 15y ago
  Oh my. My eyes don't know where to go.
WalterSear 15y ago
Facebook users, your Homer Car™ is ready for you.
jfruh 15y ago
I hate to be one of those people constantly whinging about Facebook redesigns, but ... can someone explain why Facebook seems to intent on "curating" your stream for you, based on priorities that aren't clear? I know a lot of people probably enjoy having some definition of "highlights" stuck at top, but many of us like going through the whole thing to see what all our friends are up to, until you get to a status update you recognize, which means that you know you're done looking. What does FB lose by taking away the ability to see a simple chronological list of updates? What do they gain by foregrounding the posts that they think are important? Edited to add: Several people replied to me saying "But some of us DON'T want to see a big chronological list!" Well, yeah, I said in my original post that I realized this. And in fact you already had the option to see only "Top news" instead of "All posts." What bugs me is the one-size-fits-all version that has now been imposed on everybody. Why is FB allergic to allowing different users to interact with their data in the way those users want?
- primigenus 15y ago
  My interpretation is that Facebook is more valuable if the content you see when you interact with it is more useful to you. Facebook is about connecting you with family and friends, and that's easier to do if you see valuable content more frequently than low-value content (which might pop up in a simple chronological stream). I think this way they're trying to improve the "keep-alive" of relationships between you and people on your friend lists by showing you more valuable content, which in turn will lead to higher engagement (eg. likes/comments/etc), which in turns keeps relationships going through interactions, which in turn keeps you coming back to Facebook. And that obviously is a good thing for Facebook.
- jackseviltwin 15y ago
  The problem is people with many hundreds or thousands of friends. At that point, your feed gets too unwieldy to read chronologically, or it might scroll by so quickly that in the time you catch up, dozens more have been fed in at the top. Facebook is trying to just show you what they think you're interested in the most. Sadly, they aren't doing a great job of it. I agree that they should at bring back the "Most Recent" feed for those of us who have a manageable friend count.
highriseo 15y ago
The thing that scares me most about this redesign is that Facebook is spending resources making half baked UX changes instead of focusing energy into doing something new an innovative. Lists might have their place in the future, and somehow users might get used to a more cluttered design. Ultimately, these types of features are tweaks on a product and not a game changer.
georgemcbay 15y ago
Each redesign they do lately seems to bring them closer to the look & feel of myspace. wtf are they thinking?
fsniper 15y ago
These new changes have made Facebook an unbearable platform for application developers. Firing ajax requests in a constant and fast pace is making the platform unmanageable. Combined with buggy and incomplete apis debugging and managing canvas apps are nearly impossible. I really hate building applications for the platform now.
algorithms 15y ago
It's such a shame. G+ has so much potential but unless everyone joins the game it won't succeed. Facebook really has a TERRIBLE User Experience compared to G+ Let's hope it won't end in a new Bing vs. Google situation
- suheimi 15y ago
  Agree. I see a ghost town in G+ and see a big city in Facebook with all their traffics and unmanage bugs. Facebook just copied the G+ features, but could not copy the concept behind it. I hope both Facebook and G+ success and find their own market.
primigenus 15y ago
The right-hand bar feels very "app" like. I wonder if their intention is to transition, through many iterations, Facebook into more of an "app-like" design and less of a "website"?
fsniper 15y ago
This is why I still enjoy using FriendFeed. No fuss no confusions. A working social environment.
madiator 15y ago
Clutter++
helipad 15y ago
With only ~300 friends, it seems sort of pointless to curate my feed into 'Top Stories'. Over the course of a day, there are only a couple of things that get my friends commenting or clicking 'like', and they don't get lost because there is no noise. It's as if Facebook thinks we're all Power Users (TM) with 1,000+ friends who cannot possibly keep up with the demands of 'real-time' updates.
pradeepbheron 15y ago
I found one bug in Design + JavaScript..... Click on post privacy option one drop down list open, then you scroll down its over come on top bar...
dupe123 15y ago
Oh god. This is horrifying. Less is more facebook.. less is more. I agree with the people complaining about facebooks need to curate things for you. Thats what the "hide posts from this person" should be used for. Just give me one stream and let me decide what filters to put on it.

19 points by wyldstallyn26 15y ago

sssparkkk 15y ago

Still rolling out apparently, I'm not getting the redesigned facebook.

n9com 15y ago
Count yourself lucky, it's like twitter, Facebook and google+ mixed into a dirty stew.

dadads 15y ago

I'm not one of the lucky few who gets to see it, unfortunately. Thus... Screenshots pl0x.

deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
thatjoshguy 15y ago
http://cl.ly/AJp0 http://cl.ly/AJp0 Having a 27" screen, I don't mind it. The only things that bug me is the triangle at the top of each post, and your profile pic up in the header (which now floats)

yuvadam 15y ago

As opposed to previous minor redesigns, this time Facebook has complete lost it. Basically what you're missing out on is "subscribing" to non-friends a-la-Twitter, horrible page layouts, numerous bugs, and way too many options and configurations. No Facebook, I do not want to manage my friends as if this is some kind of war room. Stop it. And someone please let Zuck know that we're not in 1999 anymore. Floating frames and detached sidebars are a UX abomination. Facebook is panicking and shooting in every direction.

rhizome 15y ago
I don't think so. I think they're backgrounding (side-bar'ing) random friend activity and designating the center stream for capital-c Content. Subscriptions, active threads, messaging from Like'd entities...the center box is commerce-oriented, the sidebar is for communications and for contributing to entities (comments, photos, statuses, etc.) defined as candidates for the center stream. I believe that the center stream will be where the half-page forced-Chevrolet ad is going to go, the changes of late all point in this direction. Think: monetization and profit.
- tmcneal 15y ago
  Along those same lines, I'd bet that the floating section was added to get more eyeballs looking on the right side of the screen where the ads are.
  - rhizome 15y ago
    I'd say that along those lines, one aspect of the purpose of the sections is that the center is long-form attention and the right sidebar is short-form "constant check" attention. And just to put the button on it: I fully believe that FB is at least this cynical when it comes to the design of the page.
danso 15y ago
As someone else has already replied, this layout minimizes the managing of friends, at least in terms of prioritizing who you want to see most of. The curation seems to be based on how much you interact with another user. By definition, your best friends on FB are the ones you interact with most, or at least whose profiles you peruse the most often. And so with FB's curation algorithm, you don't have to generate a best friends list.

deleted 15y ago

[deleted]

ethank 15y ago

I hate to jump on a hater bandwagon, because I genuinely am a proponent of innovation, but: really? I think part of the usage of a web product should be to put you in a state of ease and enjoyment, not anxiety. The new FB puts me in an anxious state. I feel I'm always on the verge of missing something. Twitter I feel has balanced the checking-in anxiety issue with a compelling product experience, and I always felt that Facebook allowed me to maneuver through the information flow at a pace I wanted. Now, I'm presented with a realtime feed and a curated feed within the same context. I just get an anxious feeling looking at it. I think the technology is amazing behind it. To be able to do realtime information flow and processing on this scale is astounding. But I think product developers need to focus not only one the technology that drives the user experience, but the emotion they are trying to instill on the users.

ethank 15y ago
I retract my views in light of Timeline.

danpker 15y ago

I've had this for a couple of weeks (weirdly). You never get used to it and you always feel like you're missing something. Even more annoying is the little status updates in the top right, above the sidebar showing everyone of your friends recent activity (which I really liked) seems to have gone now.

rhizome 15y ago
You never get used to it and you always feel like you're missing something. I'll bet this is explicitly intentional as a driver to spend more time on Facebook.
chadgeidel 15y ago
Yes, and the changes have pretty much ruined the iOS app's "news" display.

wccrawford 15y ago

They took away the ability to show all events in chronological order? Ugh. I was trying to stay away from G+ for ethical reasons, but this... This might just drive me back.

vasco 15y ago
I'm very curious about the differences you think exist between the two services regarding ethics.
- wccrawford 15y ago
  It's the whole Real Name debacle. It's been debated to death, though.
  - dfxm12 15y ago
    Facebook actually has the same policy.
    - wccrawford 15y ago
      Again, when Facebook bans someone, it doesn't destroy the rest of their online identity. And before you quote Google's policy on it, best do a search on the web for how it was actually handled.
      - dfxm12 15y ago
        My comment isn't defending Google. I'm pointing out to you that by your standard, both companies are unethical, and there is really no reason to trust either. Just in case you didn't know Facebook's stance on real names...
        wccrawford 15y ago
        You have never heard me claim that Facebook was ethical.

n9com 15y ago

It feels like signing into AOL back in 1998!

wyldstallyn26 15y ago

For those who are not lucky enough (ha!) to enjoy the new design, here's a small glimpse: https://img.skitch.com/20110921-rfae5d2pera2ig7ugbupd4pf61.jpg https://img.skitch.com/20110921-rfae5d2pera2ig7ugbupd4pf61.j... It is mind-jarringly chaotic on my Home screen. Not wise.

laconian 15y ago
Oh my. My eyes don't know where to go.

WalterSear 15y ago

Facebook users, your Homer Car™ is ready for you.

jfruh 15y ago

I hate to be one of those people constantly whinging about Facebook redesigns, but ... can someone explain why Facebook seems to intent on "curating" your stream for you, based on priorities that aren't clear? I know a lot of people probably enjoy having some definition of "highlights" stuck at top, but many of us like going through the whole thing to see what all our friends are up to, until you get to a status update you recognize, which means that you know you're done looking. What does FB lose by taking away the ability to see a simple chronological list of updates? What do they gain by foregrounding the posts that they think are important? Edited to add: Several people replied to me saying "But some of us DON'T want to see a big chronological list!" Well, yeah, I said in my original post that I realized this. And in fact you already had the option to see only "Top news" instead of "All posts." What bugs me is the one-size-fits-all version that has now been imposed on everybody. Why is FB allergic to allowing different users to interact with their data in the way those users want?

primigenus 15y ago
My interpretation is that Facebook is more valuable if the content you see when you interact with it is more useful to you. Facebook is about connecting you with family and friends, and that's easier to do if you see valuable content more frequently than low-value content (which might pop up in a simple chronological stream). I think this way they're trying to improve the "keep-alive" of relationships between you and people on your friend lists by showing you more valuable content, which in turn will lead to higher engagement (eg. likes/comments/etc), which in turns keeps relationships going through interactions, which in turn keeps you coming back to Facebook. And that obviously is a good thing for Facebook.
jackseviltwin 15y ago
The problem is people with many hundreds or thousands of friends. At that point, your feed gets too unwieldy to read chronologically, or it might scroll by so quickly that in the time you catch up, dozens more have been fed in at the top. Facebook is trying to just show you what they think you're interested in the most. Sadly, they aren't doing a great job of it. I agree that they should at bring back the "Most Recent" feed for those of us who have a manageable friend count.

highriseo 15y ago

The thing that scares me most about this redesign is that Facebook is spending resources making half baked UX changes instead of focusing energy into doing something new an innovative. Lists might have their place in the future, and somehow users might get used to a more cluttered design. Ultimately, these types of features are tweaks on a product and not a game changer.

georgemcbay 15y ago

Each redesign they do lately seems to bring them closer to the look & feel of myspace. wtf are they thinking?

fsniper 15y ago

These new changes have made Facebook an unbearable platform for application developers. Firing ajax requests in a constant and fast pace is making the platform unmanageable. Combined with buggy and incomplete apis debugging and managing canvas apps are nearly impossible. I really hate building applications for the platform now.

algorithms 15y ago

It's such a shame. G+ has so much potential but unless everyone joins the game it won't succeed. Facebook really has a TERRIBLE User Experience compared to G+ Let's hope it won't end in a new Bing vs. Google situation

suheimi 15y ago
Agree. I see a ghost town in G+ and see a big city in Facebook with all their traffics and unmanage bugs. Facebook just copied the G+ features, but could not copy the concept behind it. I hope both Facebook and G+ success and find their own market.

primigenus 15y ago

The right-hand bar feels very "app" like. I wonder if their intention is to transition, through many iterations, Facebook into more of an "app-like" design and less of a "website"?

fsniper 15y ago

This is why I still enjoy using FriendFeed. No fuss no confusions. A working social environment.

madiator 15y ago

Clutter++

helipad 15y ago

With only ~300 friends, it seems sort of pointless to curate my feed into 'Top Stories'. Over the course of a day, there are only a couple of things that get my friends commenting or clicking 'like', and they don't get lost because there is no noise. It's as if Facebook thinks we're all Power Users (TM) with 1,000+ friends who cannot possibly keep up with the demands of 'real-time' updates.

pradeepbheron 15y ago

I found one bug in Design + JavaScript..... Click on post privacy option one drop down list open, then you scroll down its over come on top bar...

dupe123 15y ago

Oh god. This is horrifying. Less is more facebook.. less is more. I agree with the people complaining about facebooks need to curate things for you. Thats what the "hide posts from this person" should be used for. Just give me one stream and let me decide what filters to put on it.