It turns out that our suspicions were correct — Facebook is about to remove the choice of whether to use its new design, or, as a note on the site proclaims: “New Facebook will soon be the only Facebook”.
In the spirit of facing up to the inevitable, I spent some time this afternoon playing with the new design, and I’ve got to say there’s still a lot about it I dislike. When I made the switch, it actually lost the front page link to my most frequently used application (Wordscraper), and while that game shows up on the new menu of ‘Recently used’ applications, it’s become completely invisible on my main app list. As well, the wider first column makes the whole thing harder to read on my Eee PC — and now, once you’ve made the switch, there’s no way to revert your account back to the old design.
Since this is about to become compulsory, it needs to improve drastically. But maybe I’ve missed something. Are there are any features on the new design that have made the switch worthwhile for you? Share your experience in the comments.
Nathan
Sunday, September 7, 2008 at 5:26 AMI was once able to view the most recent status updates in the top right hand corner of the main page. now you need to click on a link to take you to a deadicated status update page. totally useless if you ask me. you shouldent need to go look for your friends updates, everything should be on the front page.
boxfaclonfanclub
Sunday, September 7, 2008 at 8:09 PMyeap, I have to agree with most of your points there, the change however was an inevitble one. the way I see it, it has been designed to maximise its advertising potential.
Kerrie
Monday, September 8, 2008 at 8:56 AMI do like the fact that now I don’t have to scroll through everybodies crap and useless applications to get to their wall at the bottom of the page!
Cameron Watson
Monday, September 8, 2008 at 4:39 PMIn case you’re interested, Scoble recently conducted an interview with the lead designer on Facebook for the redesign. Well worth a look to find out the reasons for certain changes.
http://www.fastcompany.tv/video/a-look-behind-facebooks-new-design
A few things I actually like about the new facebook now that I didn’t before.
- Wall post at the top and in the same chronological order as all the other feeds (newest at the top)
- The combined wall and mini-feed make it more like a timeline of activity. Statuses, wall msgs, photos etc in a timeline. I hated it at first, but now I see it’s potential.
- The wider layout is much better for the feed as well as photos. Plus I can see them making better use of it in the future.
- Live feed option on the news feed is strangely curious…. try it out!
- Fewer crappy applications on people’s homepages! Its’ now much cleaner and more consistent to bring up someone’s wall.
Enigma_Syd
Wednesday, September 10, 2008 at 1:35 PMI quite like it. It’s much cleaner and easier to follow. Plus, it goes back to the roots of the idea; keeping in touch with people and excludes all the other ‘rubbish’