Facebook's Face-lift Leaves Some Devotees Fuming

Source: Life in the NHS, 2009

Facebook is a global social networking website that was founded in February 2004 by Mark Zucherberg of Harvard University. The co-founders of the website are Zuckerberg’s college roommates – Eduardo Saverin, Dustin Moskovitz and Chris Hughes (Facebook 2004).

According a research made back in January 2009, Facebook was ranked first place for most monthly visits from its users thus making it the most used social networking site (Kazeniac 2009). 40.8% of its users range from 18-24 years old (Corbett 2009).

Back in May 2008, Facebook made a change in its design interface and this decision had left millions of its users fuming. The new layout back then was all about using tabs to give priority to fresh pictures, messages and applications. The changes was said to be motivated by feedback from its users and by following the trend of sharing videos and pictures instantly (Sydney Morning Herald 2008).

There are many factors that determine a good document design. A good document design’s background should not interrupt with its text. Facebook is known as a site with plain background. The background is white and it does not interrupt the texts. Thus the texts are easy to see and do not annoys the users’ eyes.

According to Martinec and van Leeuwen (2006), hierarchy of information must be clear. The nucleus is the highest in the hierarchy and is the centre of information. Us, the main user in our profile serves as the nucleus whereas our friends are the satellites that are connected to us.

A good document design should have navigations bars that are easy to understand and use (Affiliate Seeking 2004). The navigation should be consistent throughout the site and applications and the pages should be downloaded quickly. A good design interface should have a more user-friendly function, with personalization and customization.

Although Facebook has always been an easy to navigate site with user friendly functions and organized page, there are still room for improvements in order to make the site better. One of the ways is by giving a clearer hierarchy among friends (Agrawal 2009), by putting priorities to those who has more interaction with the users, or by dividing groups to acquaintances and friends. Another way is to include more personalization in terms of visual without interrupting the texts. A better weight distribution of the page can also make the page looks more balance and organized instead of having too much wide spaces.

Every time Facebook changes its interface, a lot of users will end up creating and joining groups and forums to discuss about the changes of its interface. However, it is just a matter of time for the users to get used to it. At the end of the day, Facebook will always take its users feedback in order to make a better redesign.

References

2004, 'Facebook', Information, viewed 5 November 2009, <http://www.facebook.com/facebook?ref=pf#/facebook?v=info&ref=pf>

2009, 'Facebook makeover leaves some devotees fuming', The Sydney Morning Herald, viewed 18 November 2009, <http://www.smh.com.au/technology/biz-tech/facebook-makeover-leaves-some-devotees-fuming-20090616-ce6o.html>

2009, 'Web Page Design with Graphic Button', Affiliate Seeking.com, viewed 5 November 2009, <http://www.affiliateseeking.com/ashow/151.html>

Agrawal, R 2009, '9 ways to improve the Facebook news feed', reDesign, viewed 5 November 2009, <http://blog.agrawals.org/2009/04/15/9-ways-to-improve-the-facebook-news-feed/>

Corbett, P 2009, 'Facebook Demographics and Statistics Report: 276% Growth in 35-54 Year Old Users', istrategylabs, viewed 5 November 2009, <http://www.istrategylabs.com/2009/01/2009-facebook-demographics-and->

Kazeniac, A 2009, 'Social Networks: Facebook Takes Over Top Spot, Twitter Climbs', Compete, viewed 5 November 2009, <http://blog.compete.com/2009/02/09/facebook-myspace-twitter-social-network/>

Martinec, R & van Leeuwen T 2008, The Language of the New Media Design, Routledge, USA