Facebook Launches New Redesign
As the world’s most popular social networking site, even minor updates to Facebook’s appearance and functionality often cause uproar among its estimated 300 million dedicated users. That hasn’t prevented its owners rolling out a series of quite radical changes regardless of the protests.
The latest batch of changes – rolled out across all accounts over the past week – are among the most radical yet. Up front and center is an improved news feed. When this was first introduced, users complained that it too closely mimicked Twitter and was thus alien to the huge majority of people who have still to take Twitter to their hearts.
The feed was also cluttered by application updates, leading a very popular message doing the rounds about how you could change things around to focus more on status updates and conversations. In response, the news feed now has more focus on status updates and photographs.
Visually, the site continues to get simpler. The rounded edges and big blocks of colour that marked early iterations of Facebook have long been trending towards a simpler style and this latest update takes the site a lot closer to the mobile version. The logo and top menu has shrunk dramatically, leaving more screen space for actual content and updates – a move that is surely welcome.
A common trope among designers is that most companies continually want a bigger logo. Not so Facebook – whose logo is now very discreet. The colour scheme has become iconic in itself so the site remains instantly recognisable. The smaller logo also indicates that the company is pretty relaxed about its branding.
In terms of functionality, Facebook’s widespread adoption of Ajax to include real time updates continues apace. Live updates are now flagged in a more prominent position at the top of the page and flagged up with tidy red icons that stand out much more clearly against the blue banner strap.
Applications are now presented more discreetly through the side menu, and the floating bottom bar that previously housed them has been dramatically shrunk to just provide a place for Facebook chat. On the subject of chat, it was a feature that has mixed feedback due to its propensity to crash. Early indications are that the feature is now more reliable.
Overall Facebook’s evolution reflects a number of trends in the online world. The focus on live updates and the adoption of Ajax to help realise this reflects the influence that Twitter has had. The increasing simplicity of the interface is also something that is a reflection of the trend away from the glossy, hyperactive interfaces that dominated web design a couple of years ago.
What do we think? Well this is more of an evolution when compared to the outright revolution of the last series of updates and possibly for that reason this feels more natural and less of a shock to the system. Overall, the simplicity and realtime control is increasingly impressive and Facebook is now several streets of any of its competitors.
