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Yes. They telegraph consistency, reliability, and deeper thought. The clear relationship that the type and all the icons have to each other looks planned and su

Yes. They telegraph consistency, reliability, and deeper thought. The clear relationship that the type and all the icons have to each other looks planned and substantial. Typically, these are qualities that brands want to convey.

jlarocco 11y ago
I'm not so sure. Are there studies or anything? Facebook got pretty big and they're just now doing this, and mainly because one guy is spearheading it. I have a hard time believing Facebook's user base or revenue would be any different if they consistently used a certain sans-serif font.
- hbosch 11y ago
  No, these changes are not new. They are years old. The small changes over time are someone imperceptible in tiny chunks as they become applied over time, this may be true. But to question their value? To the visual design and branding industry, that's like throwing down the gauntlet. There are teams of people dedicated to shaving milliseconds of latency off of page loads. They might speed up the entire site by 15-20ms in a year! That's amazing! But do Facebook users care? The answer is probably actually "no" -- but it's not important that users notice or care. In fact, these kinds of changes are judged in their success by users actually not noticing and simply getting a better experience whether they know it or not.
  - jlarocco 11y ago
    > But to question their value? To the visual design and branding industry, that's like throwing down the gauntlet. I don't see the problem questioning the value. If I'm paying somebody $150k a year to design stuff for my company, and they're spending the time making imperceptible changes to fonts and deciding whether the bottom of the 'f' in my logo should have a 3 pixel border or not, I think it's fair to know why they're doing it and what they're expecting to achieve. I never said design isn't valuable. I was specifically questioning the trivial changes this guy is making. Is he really earning his salary making imperceptible font changes? Making a page load faster is actually noticeable by users, but it's a red herring, because that's not a component of "visual identity," and it wasn't even mentioned in the article. Something more substantial than, "I'm another designer, and I think it's valuable," would be nice.
    - dnch 11y ago
      They're doing it because that's part of the job. All of those "trivial changes" combine to give users the perception of completeness, cohesiveness and value. When broken down into exacting detail, it's easy to dismiss them as imperceptible; by themselves, they mostly are. But the cumulative effect of these decisions leads to the perception of a better product. Compare and contrast a MacBook Air with any one of the cheaper knock-offs. They may pretty much look the same, but the Apple product has an intangible sense of being worth more. The same thing goes with cars—sure, they all have the same basic design, but put an Audi next to a Lada and you can immediately tell by looking at them which one's worth more. That's the value of visual design.
      - jlarocco 11y ago
        I still disagree. In my experience, Apple products offer superior technical value. Compare the touchpad in a MacBook to one of the knock-offs. OSX has better graphics performance and more software available than Linux. The build quality of the Apple products is higher. Point being, there are objective reasons and tangible value that make the MacBook worth its higher cost. Same thing with the car example. I'm still not convinced that Facebook is gaining any tangible value from such minor aesthetic changes. Are there any real numbers to back up the claims that real users care about such things?
        macca321 11y ago
        You''d have thought on Hacker News of all places at least one person would pop up saying that they had AB tested user engagement with consistent and inconsistent variants.
        jamesdelaneyie 11y ago
        Your line of questioning is great. And it's something that drives me up the wall that designers don't engage with these questions better. Here's someone from DesignerNews on your comments: "Here's what the left-brainers have to think about such a well though-out and through design process..." It's hinging on the effort that went into the process, which is by all means extensive and impressive. Its' defensive. But I think your line of questioning is extremely important and I'm a designer, so I'll give it a bash with explaining why they did this. I don't think you could ever back up with numbers that these changes 'matter' to users. Any research that could be done would, in the words of someone better than I – be used like a drunk uses a lamp post. For support, not illumination. At the end of the day, I'm inclined to agree that these changes are negligible for users. What this is more a case of is Facebook deciding they care about the craft and quality of the visual design in their product. Regardless of if users give a toss. The change isn't quantifiable in numbers. It will most likely not change the bottom line of the company. But what it does do, is communicate that Facebook cares about visual design craft. This is part of branding. Deciding they care about these things, to have the image of the company they want. These changes are on par with Apple choosing to make a glass staircase in their stores. It's like Twitter choosing the colour of their office furniture, it's like any other company implementing anything that does not directly or clearly affect returns or is quantifiable in numbers. Simply put, it's a culture thing. They've decided they care about visual design craft and so they put money into it so they can have high quality visual design craft. And they have done that here – this is high quality.

jlarocco 11y ago

I'm not so sure. Are there studies or anything? Facebook got pretty big and they're just now doing this, and mainly because one guy is spearheading it. I have a hard time believing Facebook's user base or revenue would be any different if they consistently used a certain sans-serif font.

hbosch 11y ago
No, these changes are not new. They are years old. The small changes over time are someone imperceptible in tiny chunks as they become applied over time, this may be true. But to question their value? To the visual design and branding industry, that's like throwing down the gauntlet. There are teams of people dedicated to shaving milliseconds of latency off of page loads. They might speed up the entire site by 15-20ms in a year! That's amazing! But do Facebook users care? The answer is probably actually "no" -- but it's not important that users notice or care. In fact, these kinds of changes are judged in their success by users actually not noticing and simply getting a better experience whether they know it or not.
- jlarocco 11y ago
  > But to question their value? To the visual design and branding industry, that's like throwing down the gauntlet. I don't see the problem questioning the value. If I'm paying somebody $150k a year to design stuff for my company, and they're spending the time making imperceptible changes to fonts and deciding whether the bottom of the 'f' in my logo should have a 3 pixel border or not, I think it's fair to know why they're doing it and what they're expecting to achieve. I never said design isn't valuable. I was specifically questioning the trivial changes this guy is making. Is he really earning his salary making imperceptible font changes? Making a page load faster is actually noticeable by users, but it's a red herring, because that's not a component of "visual identity," and it wasn't even mentioned in the article. Something more substantial than, "I'm another designer, and I think it's valuable," would be nice.
  - dnch 11y ago
    They're doing it because that's part of the job. All of those "trivial changes" combine to give users the perception of completeness, cohesiveness and value. When broken down into exacting detail, it's easy to dismiss them as imperceptible; by themselves, they mostly are. But the cumulative effect of these decisions leads to the perception of a better product. Compare and contrast a MacBook Air with any one of the cheaper knock-offs. They may pretty much look the same, but the Apple product has an intangible sense of being worth more. The same thing goes with cars—sure, they all have the same basic design, but put an Audi next to a Lada and you can immediately tell by looking at them which one's worth more. That's the value of visual design.
    - jlarocco 11y ago
      I still disagree. In my experience, Apple products offer superior technical value. Compare the touchpad in a MacBook to one of the knock-offs. OSX has better graphics performance and more software available than Linux. The build quality of the Apple products is higher. Point being, there are objective reasons and tangible value that make the MacBook worth its higher cost. Same thing with the car example. I'm still not convinced that Facebook is gaining any tangible value from such minor aesthetic changes. Are there any real numbers to back up the claims that real users care about such things?
      - macca321 11y ago
        You''d have thought on Hacker News of all places at least one person would pop up saying that they had AB tested user engagement with consistent and inconsistent variants.
      - jamesdelaneyie 11y ago
        Your line of questioning is great. And it's something that drives me up the wall that designers don't engage with these questions better. Here's someone from DesignerNews on your comments: "Here's what the left-brainers have to think about such a well though-out and through design process..." It's hinging on the effort that went into the process, which is by all means extensive and impressive. Its' defensive. But I think your line of questioning is extremely important and I'm a designer, so I'll give it a bash with explaining why they did this. I don't think you could ever back up with numbers that these changes 'matter' to users. Any research that could be done would, in the words of someone better than I – be used like a drunk uses a lamp post. For support, not illumination. At the end of the day, I'm inclined to agree that these changes are negligible for users. What this is more a case of is Facebook deciding they care about the craft and quality of the visual design in their product. Regardless of if users give a toss. The change isn't quantifiable in numbers. It will most likely not change the bottom line of the company. But what it does do, is communicate that Facebook cares about visual design craft. This is part of branding. Deciding they care about these things, to have the image of the company they want. These changes are on par with Apple choosing to make a glass staircase in their stores. It's like Twitter choosing the colour of their office furniture, it's like any other company implementing anything that does not directly or clearly affect returns or is quantifiable in numbers. Simply put, it's a culture thing. They've decided they care about visual design craft and so they put money into it so they can have high quality visual design craft. And they have done that here – this is high quality.