First, let me bring focus to a bold few, Ben, @KatLikeWrites, Alauna, Jenski and TinkTrace (longtime friend of the Chasm staff) all weighed in. The rest of you were probably busy being inattentive friends, disgruntled coworkers or panhandlers. (All worthy distractions.)
Check the post for their full comments but here’s a paraphrase:
There’s distaste for the new look. Partly because no one really cares what everyone thinks and to have it front-center is useless. At least Jenski cares about the elderly. Ben aims aesthetic, noting the lack of hierarchy. He likes the “What’s on your mind” call for a status update and wants more filters. (There’s more but he got a little wordy.)
After their failed acquisition bid Twitter, Facebook made a twit-esque homepage. Except they failed miserably. There’s a difference betwixt the two: FB is information sharing and Twt is conversation. FB’s attempt to combine them outright is terrible.
Theoretically it’s useful. It provides another conduit for tossing nauseatingly-specific ads at users. It makes easier the sharing of pointless. It even responds to the imaginary “Twitter threat.” Then the whole thing crumbles.
All of these ideas are lost on a smattering of “uhh” that sparks headaches and causes toddlers to realize shame (conceptually). All elements look the same (wall post, status update, photo upload, etc.). Everything is important, making everything unimportant.
This may be more in line with their clean coal-esque business model (whatever that is) but this is a terrible way to go about adhering to it. With all their venture-money, where’s the designer?
S/he would (or should) have asked, where’s the white space? Where do you let the eye rest? Where should it jump to? What’s important on this page? How will users use the page and site? Can we fix the stroke on our rounded boxes?
I’ve seen a gigantic upturn in the number of status updates in the last week. This isn’t necessarily good. The quality therein hasn’t increased; most are just reacting to having such a prominent text-input box.
From past changes and those (handsome, beautiful readers) that commented, the change will soon be tolerated. When will people start to ask more of FB? When will they say, “sure, this works, but I know I could do better?”
I hope soon. If this is any indication of what the most popular social network has on offer, our slow moving train has stopped indefinitely.
Think FB2.5 is the bees knees? Think I’m wrong calling FB an innovation-free, Microsoft-esque dinosaur company? Let me know.
Tags: interactive design, social tools