A Kinder, Gentler Facebook Design

Yet another Facebook Makeover

What did Facebook Change?

So here’s the scoop – The top navigation has changed. One big change (some may say RADICAL!) is that Facebook’s search bar is on the left – “Oh no! Say it isn’t so! On every site I visit, the search is on the right, what will I do?!”, I can hear the cries already… Sometimes change is good.

Top Right Navigation

Now on the right you’ll see your “Home”, “Profile” and “Account” links:

The “Account” link opens a dropdown menu so you can easily navigate to all your account needs:

On first glance, I wasn’t really sure about any of the new features, but now I feel tht it does make it a little simpler to navigate and a bit more intuitive.

Top Left Navigation

Here’s the top left side of your new Facebook:

There’s that search bar hanging out on the left. Starting on the left, the Facebook logo still links to your home page. Next is the feature that I really like on this redesign: 3 icons for:

1. Friend Requests
2. Messages in your Inbox
3. Notifications

Remember on the “old” Facebook, your notifications were on the bottom right of the screen, your messages were up top on the left (close to where it is now) and friend requests were only found on your home page. I really like that these 3 are all together now. Anything that makes my time spent on Facebook more efficient!

See? Instant Notification Gratification!

Left Menu Bar

This is pretty similar to how it was but here  is a list of features here:

1. Your News Feed, Messages and your Friends – are at the top, this way it’s easier to keep up with what’s new.
2. Applications you’ve bookmarked are now higher up the page for easier/quicker access.

Here’s the part I both like and dislike: The next feature, “Chat with Friends” and “Go Online”. Once you click “Go Online” you are connect to all your friends also online – this can be cool if you like to use the Facebook Chat Feature. Here’s my beef: Once you click “Go Online”, there is no link in the Left Bar to “Go Offline”! Instead, you have to navigate to the bottom right where the chat feature still lives and go to Options –> Go Offline. That’s kind of lame if you ask me.

And Finally

Not much really, except that the new layout increases the amount of clicks I need to take care of some simple tasks like logging out and accessing settings.

All in all, I like  the changes – I am always helping my clients reduce the amount of time needed to maintain efficient and personal contact on Facebook (and other Social Media sites), so any good intuitive simplifying works for me.