

Information Architect's 2006 Facebook redesigns - slater
http://informationarchitects.jp/ias-2006-facebook-designs-redesigned/

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jfornear
I don't like it. The new Facebook design centers around the search bar for a
reason. I'm sure Facebook designers tracked user behavior and gathered that
the search bar should be more in focus. This redesign botches this concept
completely. Information design !> usability design. Also, the distance you
have to move your eyes left to right to read this is a readability issue.
Basically, you have to work way too hard to read this and do what you want to
do. That's my 2c.

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boucher
The search issue is almost definitely a non issue, and an oversight on the
part of iA. Just moving it to the top placement in the left hand column would
give it almost the same placement it has on the real Facebook today.

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eagleal
Yes it is! As the parent comment said, the new design it's search focused with
solid reasons behind it. Most people I know do basically 2 things on Facebook:

1\. Search friends, or suggested names constantly. And the new layout focuses
exactly on this.

2\. Chat. (During chat: "do you know X Y?" -> 1, "saw person X with Z G" ->
(if don't know) -> 1)

 _Disclosure: I usually don't use Facebook (just to connect with old friends,
sometimes)._

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oloolo
So you're saying

"I don't use facebook but I am sure they did their research, therefore it's
perfect as it is."

Seriously? The reason why the search is on the bottom is exactly because I
thought that

1\. Facebook follows the push (feed/mail) paradigm and not the pull (search)
paradigm 2\. Search in a feed application is a form of filtering (if user
testing shows that people miss it, you can still place it under the logo) 3\.
I do use facebook but I don't use the search because a) so far it has nnever
shown me good results and b) it's not clear to me what kind of results it is
supposed to show (my stuff, all of facebook...)

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eagleal
I didn't say I don't use it, I said I don't use it everyday.

I didn't say "it's perfect as it is". I said there are good reasons why the
Facebook team moved in that direction.

Only because you don't use search doesn't mean no one is. I said most of the
people I know, use it to find people they know. If they want to see what is
someone doing, they don't go trough their friend list (referrer volume), but
they search directly the name (search volume). In this case the search volume
is bigger than the referrer one. Find ways to make it easier for users to
search.

I think Facebook employs in part some of the Google paradigms in UX.

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mortenjorck
I could see it working well. Overall, there's a good sense of balance and
flow, but my main concern would be the transition between the each-post detail
mode and the single-post detail mode of the right column. The arrows and
shading don't quite seem to express the change in linking readily enough; I'd
suggest a more pronounced visual differentiation between the two.

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m0th87
Brilliant design, but it doesn't seem like it would degrade very gracefully
for lower resolutions.

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donohoe
The second and third columns provide a lot of collapsible space depending on
the browser width, no?

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m0th87
Yes, but either the comments wouldn't be visible in low-resolution clients or
facebook would have to provide a completely different layout (e.g. with inline
comments) for them.

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duck
Outlook has basically proved this interface works well and I think it could be
applied to other conversation types like Facebook. As in Outlook, making this
an option would be cool.

