New Facebook UI - will apps make a comeback

The last facebook re-design saved it from becoming a mess like MySpace was a the time. Users had too much control of their profile pages resulting in no consistency from page to page and over cluttered and annoying pages. Third party Apps ruled and dominated users profiles and spammed everyone with their activity.

The re-design buried the apps and restricted profile customisation so that the design was cleaner, more consistent from page to page and generally a better place to be. It did however, mean all the hardwork developers had put into apps was going to waste as apps were harder to get to and less noticeable. A footer navigation to apps later was added which helped somewhat but was not that prominant.

The new design which most should be able to see today if not within the next couple of days makes further improvements to the general look and feel and apps resurface as a prominant homepage feature.

New FaceBook homepage UI (click to enlarge)

First thing to notice is that the main column has been tweaked with more imagery in rounded corner squares. Instead of “joe blogs” did XYZ we have the users profile pic along with it. The main column is just an updating news feed and feels a bit like Twitter - perhaps what Facebook were aiming for.

The right column has been re-purposed. Moving the alerts to the top of the news feed in the main column and introducing a highlights section which app developers will be pleased to know promotes apps as well as groups which has also been neglected due to their lack of prominance.

The left column lets you filter the items in the main news-feed so you can quickly show only updates related to your contact categories. For example you may use facebook for work and personal and so switching between work and friends categories helps you keep your updates seperate.  The left column also means the tabs on the main column can be done away with and are now part of the vertical nav on that side.

The status update field has been made more prominant and changed from what are you doing to what’s on your mind - opening it up to a wider range of discussions. With the status commenting that has proven popular this is now more of a conversation starter than a an Instant Messanger type “I’m at lunch” message.

Overall the new design looks good, is cleaner and better laid out than facebook of old but still lets you get easy access to what’s hot on facebook whether it be friend updates or apps. It’s new filter is also a great help to users that use facebook for both business and pleasure or simply want to seperate friends and family.

I don’t expect as much of a backlash from users as the last big change but there are always some who won’t be happy - look out for the “petition facebook to undo their redesign” group

Thumbs up to Facebook and watch out Twitter.