Facebook’s Facelift

Facebook has been preparing for a redesign for a while, and they recently allowed their users to test it out at http://new.facebook.com. This is a good move on their part, because they encourage users to send in feedback, and apparently people have been doing just that, because they’ve been tweaking it. I started using it as soon as they enabled it for my account.

The first thing to notice about the new design is the navigation bar. The good: the account settings and privacy settings links have been combined into one dropdown menu. There’s an applications menu with a list of bookmarked applications and another list of recently used ones. I’d like to take this opportunity to point out a bug: included in the list of my recently used applications is one called Test_Doubleclick, which has no icon and returns an error whenever I click on it. I’m not sure if I’m the only one this happens to, and I have no idea how to reproduce it. Anyway, the menu also takes up less space vertically, and is definitely more attractive.

The friends and inbox links have lost their dropdown menus. This is not a good change the users are now more removed from what they want to do. In particular, I bemoan the loss of the Compose Message item on the Inbox dropdown.

Finally, the profile link has been changed to show the user’s name instead of the word Profile. This is bad—the user already knows their name, but now they don’t know where that particular link goes. In addition, the edit link that used to reside next to the profile link is gone. Facebook seems to be moving towards a sort of topical editing scheme, where instead of all of a user’s information being in one place the user must navigate to the relevant sections to edit their information. For example, if I wanted to add a band to my Favorite Music section, I would now have to navigate to my profile, go to the info tab (more on this later), and click the Edit Information link. Before, the process was as simple as clicking the edit link on main navigation bar. In addition, when editing the info tab information, all the fields are collapsible and are collapsed by default, putting one more step between the user and what they want to do.

On a better note, the rest of the profile is for the most part vastly improved. When a user logs in, they’re presented with a links to update their status, add photos, write a note, etc. This is nestled right above the news feed, which has also been given a facelift. It is now tabbed, and you can view top stories (new wall posts, events, etc.) as well as friends’ status updates, new photos, and posted items. A minor gripe with this: the tabs on this and other site features are not visually consistent with the tabs in the profile. The sidebar on the homepage is mostly the same, but the sections have been better prioritized (example: status is now above pokes).

Of all the Facebook features, the profile has undergone the most refinement. Like on the homepage, there is a publisher feature at the top of the page, which allows users to quickly and easily write on a friend’s wall, post photos, etc. This is a major improvement; before, especially when viewing the profile of someone with a lot of applications, a user would have to search for the content they wanted to view. This publisheralso allows users to interact with their friend’s applications—Facebook may be going in the wrong direction in regards to scattering profile and account information, but they’re doing the exact opposite here. It’s incredibly convenient to be able to interact with most of a friend’s profile from one spot.

The profile is now divided up into tabs, the main ones being Wall (containing a user’s wall and mini-feed), Info (containing their personal information, contact information, etc.), Photos (containing uploaded and tagged photos), and Boxes (containing any applications a user may have added). In addition, users can take any applications they use and give them their own tab. It’s great, no doubt about that, but if I were Facebook I would go a bit further and allow them to make their own tab for groups of applications. For example, if I wanted to put my Last.fm application and my iLike application together but keep them separate from the rest of my applications, I should be able to give them their own tab and be able to name it, say, Music. All in all, though, the tabs make for a much, much more organized profile than the older one. I have one minor gripe with the tabs, which is that the wall and the mini-feed have been combined; this is an issue because I’m not sure how relevant the mini-feed content is to the wall content. I personally don’t have a problem with it, but that’s not to say that other people won’t.

My only major problem with the new profile is the left sidebar. The top three items are the profile picture, blurb (a new feature—just space for you to write a little paragraph about yourself), basic information (such as your networks and birthday), and a friends list. That’s good. Everything below that, though, seems just jammed in. Facebook puts their applications there by default, I think (in my sidebar reside Notes, Photos, and Gifts, in that order), but you can choose which applications are displayed. Either way, it’s redundant. I already have a tab for my photos; why do I need another little box on the sidebar? Even the items that don’t have tabs by default (Notes and Gifts) I’d rather either move into one of the tabs or just get rid of altogether. I’m not sure what would go there instead (maybe get rid of the info tab and put that stuff in the sidebar?) but in its current state, it’s a pretty useless way to take up space.

The final word is that the new design is good. They could definitely rework some things, but on the whole it’s a big improvement. I’ve heard people say that they don’t like it, but I would imagine that if they were asked to go back in six months they would choose the new design.

Update: The Test_doubleclick item has been removed from my Applications list.