

New Facebook Design Confuses Many, Obscures Features - ksvs
http://www.louisgray.com/live/2008/07/new-facebook-design-omits-major.html

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jessestay
unalone, you have some excellent points. By the tone of your voice, I clearly
struck a nerve. I appreciate your constructive comments though. Here's my own
response to your comments:

"That's because Groups and Pages serve as a sort of utility on Facebook. Yes,
they're abused by immensely stupid people. But where SHOULD they go? On the
"info" page, which is designed to show the user's INFORMATION on the site?
That's what groups and pages ARE. On the "feed" page, which is supposed to
show incoming activity? Yes - that's why they ARE displayed on the site when
there's activity regarding them."

My point on this was that it's now in a different place than before. I recall
no blog post or documentation by Facebook pointing out that these were going
to be removed. I use them frequently to find out affiliations a user is a part
of, and with them having moved, I had to search to find them now. Once users
get used to this, I agree - it's in a good place for now. However, they could
have provided better documentation to users that this was going to be there.
It wasn't in the developer preview until it was just launched, and I argue it
wasn't even in there last week, because I looked pretty thoroughly last week
when I was preparing this.

"1) Facebook is not a site for businesses. It's a site for connecting with
people you know. They fucking SAY that when you register. If you're trying to
exploit it, you do it AGAINST the system, and them stifling that is a GOOD
thing."

I beg to differ on this one, and this is part of the problem. Businesses see
Facebook as a huge opportunity, and it's part of the reason the 25 and older
audience is the fastest-growing audience on Facebook. As Facebook ignores
this, businesses, and professionals will also flock away from the site.

"You're supposed to use your network affiliation to announce your job. Not
groups, and not pages."

Facebook has announced they are eventually removing the networks so this won't
be the case for long. Facebook also isn't just about "announcing a job". It's
also about providing businesses an opportunity to interact in a reasonable and
social way with users. Facebook is a tool for both users and businesses. This
is how Facebook makes money and I doubt they're going to ignore it.

"The changing of the FriendFeed information is because Facebook has suddenly
added a lot MORE functionality into their feeds. Apps can show MORE
information now, because there are multiple tiers of app distribution."

I agree completely, but my point there was that Facebook gave developers
little to no time to improve this. This is why you're seeing poor feeds, and
poor use of the design by applications. I agree though that this is a bigger
opportunity for developers, and over time this should be much better.

Oh, and you can call me Jesse. :-)

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unalone
Has Mr. Stay not looked at any of the Facebook documentation explaining why
they're acting like they are? This article smacks of illiteracy or, worse,
apathy.

"Facebook seems to have moved the Pages and Groups on users' profile pages.
Now, to access Pages or Groups, one has to click one page deep from the main
profile Page into the "Info" tab, and if you scroll down your Pages and Groups
will be in the main section below. What's even more odd is that there is no
way to drag those Groups or Pages around like there was before in order to put
them higher up for users to see."

That's because Groups and Pages serve as a sort of utility on Facebook. Yes,
they're abused by immensely stupid people. But where SHOULD they go? On the
"info" page, which is designed to show the user's INFORMATION on the site?
That's what groups and pages ARE. On the "feed" page, which is supposed to
show incoming activity? Yes - that's why they ARE displayed on the site when
there's activity regarding them.

And clicking and dragging is a fuck-all feature on Facebook. It was necessary
when there were hugely cluttered profiles. Now that Facebook's gone ahead and
ORGANIZED things, it's like this magical land where you don't HAVE to guess
where things are, because you KNOW where they are. But no - we can't assume
that Facebook, one of the most ruthlessly efficient sites online, actually
knows what it's doing. We're still comparing it to MySpace, after all. That
means Facebook's bad and stupid.

"Facebook evidently does not want users to see Pages and Groups as the first
things users see when they visit your profile, as the company seems to be
saving the business portions of Facebook for later. They seem have put low
priority on them lately."

Possibly for two reasons.

1) Facebook is not a site for businesses. It's a site for connecting with
people you know. They fucking SAY that when you register. If you're trying to
exploit it, you do it AGAINST the system, and them stifling that is a GOOD
thing.

2) You're supposed to use your network affiliation to announce your job. Not
groups, and not pages.

"It's obvious that Applications have now moved to the "boxes" tab, and
Facebook has made this clear in several announcements and blog posts recently.
They did cut developers short however in the time frame they offered, and
developers aren't happy either. For this reason you'll see most of your
applications in that Boxes tab, rather than on your main Profile page, and
applications like the FriendFeed app on Facebook no longer display detailed
information in your news feed, but rather, "so and so has new activity in
FriendFeed"."

The changing of the FriendFeed information is because Facebook has suddenly
added a lot MORE functionality into their feeds. Apps can show MORE
information now, because there are multiple tiers of app distribution.

And application developers can now design an ENTIRE PROFILE PAGE for their
application, if the user opts in. That means, wait for it, they have MORE
space to display things. The "boxes" tab is really the "shitty applications"
tab, since designing a profile page is not difficult at all, and we're not
supposed to care about shitty applications. If Top Friends can make a page
devoted to hopeless cliquishness, any developer can do the same. (Though the
fact that Facebook now implements "top friends" functionality into their
friends display means that hopefully people will stop being stupid. (That was
a joke.)

"As you can tell from the original revision of this post that I mentioned
above, even I was confused by the new design (and I wrote two books about
Facebook)! While I like how clean the new design is, getting to know where
features are and aren't will take some time. This is going to confuse many of
you, and there will be some backlash. My hope is, that with time, all this
will work out for a better, cleaner, less spammy Facebook that we can all
appreciate."

My complaint was the opposite - not much changed at all. The features are all
basically where they used to be, and when they moved, it's easy to find there
they went.

And - also - who the FUCK writes a book about Facebook, let alone TWO? No.
Don't reply. I know the excuses. I know some people care about this shit.
Those people deserve to be shot point-blank or at the very least denied the
privilege of blogging in a way that I see the link. I know I'm becoming the
resident angry person on HN, but there's a REASON for that, and that reason is
that things like this are just absolutely PATHETIC.

