The new Facebook profile design and layout are set to be revealed and discussed by Mark Zuckerberg later tonight on CBS 60 Minutes, but a variety of screenshots are now available and users can even activate the new Facebook profile layout here.
Since we love focusing on design and the principles of design here at CreativeFan, we thought it would be interesting to break down some of the design aspects of the new Facebook layout from a design and usability standpoint, as well as open the floor for you, the user, to discuss the advantages and improvements as well as the drawbacks and issues with the new design.
First, let’s preview some of the changes. The first, and most obvious change, is the addition of a ‘user snapshot’ at the top, basically highlighting employment, education, location as well as some photos from the user. Additionally, the use of thumbnail icons for employers, interests, likes and friends are even more prominent in the new design. Many people have commented on the prominence of the dual sidebars, the removal of the ‘Say something about yourself’ box, and the almost Wikipedia style of the display. Also of note is the increased number of advertisements displaying across the design. The ever ambiguous ‘poke’ function, along with the message function, are moved to the upper right corner, and the tabs for viewing information are moved underneath the user’s profile photo.
For photos, it takes a similar approach to the way that pictures currently display, with essentially dumping large numbers of images and content to the screen, with the goal of creating a visual connection between friends and users.
Looking at the interests, likes and other user content, it focuses largely on implementing some of the AJAX functionality currently on the news feed, as well as moving to have thumbnails much more prominent.
Now, for a comparison, here is the old vs. the new:
Old Facebook:
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New Facebook:
Additionally, it seems likely that the changes will be affecting Fan pages as well, at least based on this particular screenshot from Ellen DeGeneres’ show fan page.
Now, let’s take a look at some of the pros and cons of the new design:
Pros:
- Increased focus on user interaction, particularly with media rich content.
- User ‘snapshot’ presents the most relevant information at the top of the page.
- Overall, better organization of information such as friends and family.
- Improved display of Likes and Interests for movies, books, television, etc.
- The design is new, and Facebook tends to roll out design changes once or twice per year, so the changes aren’t so sweeping that users need to use a whole new interface.
- Consistent use of fonts, colors and sizing leads to a coherent design feeling.
Cons:
- The increased usage of media is a drawback on usability for a large number of users who have slower internet connections, expensive bandwidth costs, or mobile devices.
- With the prominence of the two sidebars in the design, the site is feeling more and more cluttered, and one of the moves that Facebook may make is to increase the width of the design, neglecting users with smaller screen resolutions.
- The larger number of ads on the sidebar leads to the cluttered feeling, as well as a potential for users to neglect the right sidebar completely due to the focus on ads (on Zuckerberg’s profile, only 1 relevant piece of information resides on that sidebar).
- Information overload, particularly with the default display being the Profile and not the Wall. Although it’s great that people can easily find out relevant information about you, it also increases privacy concerns, risks for ‘Facebook stalking’, and it feels as though it is almost a personal Wikipedia.
- The general lack of whitespace on certain areas detracts from the visual appeal.
- The decreased font size (starting with the News Feeds last month) may strain many users’ eyes, and it also will affect usability on mobile devices.
- Facebook seems to be pushing for all users to use a specific app on their mobile device as opposed to the browser itself, which has both advantages and drawbacks by itself.
So, what do you think? Let us know in the comments. Do you like the design, hate it, don’t have any feelings about it? Think we’re wrong in our assessment of the redesign? We want to hear it!
Oh GOD, not AGAIN.
I’m so sick of these updates- plus these make your profile look even uglier~ D:
The other thing I noticed, it’s biased against un-photogenic people. It automatically chooses 5 photos of you to display at the top near your user ‘snapshot’. For unphotogenic people (like me :P ), its hard to find good photos to use!
can you change those 5 pictures?
Yes, if you mouse over you can click the ‘x’ and they will remove and it will go sequentially through the photos, so you can narrow down the ones you want.
thanks a bunch!
I clicked on the X’s too many times and now I am down to 3 photos. Has anyone figured out how to add photos?
I personally dislike it. Yes, it would now cost more to access Facebook, something which I used to do everyday. Now, I would have to reduce my usage to balance out my bandwidth with my wallet. Not to mention it would take away more of my time to load up the pages. I go around a lot, so I don’t have broadband everywhere just yet.
I liked Facebook previously because of its simplicity, yet now it is not so simple. It’s becoming more and more like the old age social networking sites, e.g. MySpace. There was a reason I dumped my MySpace account.
Maybe I should just skip Facebook and go on to the next level. Just because the sun shines today, does not mean it shines forever.
Take that in mind, Facebook.
Update again?
I think this new layout is too complex.
oh no… hee we go again. if we look at myspace and how its changed we can see how facebook will turn out. myspace was fun and easy then tom added way to many adverts and extras the whole site got bogged down and cashed several times. facebook was so simple and easy to use when it started but its slowly becoming the same as myspace. OVERLOADED!! people want simplicity not a website that takes an hour to find out how to add a picture to your profile. i say leave the structure alone, and add/remove small things to change it up a bit.
You mention that the website will be an issue on mobile browsers, but I doubt it will be. If you load facebook in a mobile browser facebook usually loads its mobile version making it much more user friendly on those devices. Therefore you cannot really count that as a con. However, most of the cons are very true, the font even strains my eyes on a regular computer. They haven’t done the best job redesigning the site with the past few ‘upgrades’ It only makes me hope that they are making these changes for anticipation of a better profile in the future. Lets hope facebook makes the right choices with future designs.
Seriously dislike the idea – though there’s quite a good flow to it – would rather see a Yahoo or Google-like Ajaxified page layout where users can decide how the page should look like without having to go through the plethora updates every season. The lack of white space makes it uber-cramped and slightly off the mark. Time to revamp the page again !
I do not like the new profile as it has many inconveniences and have no privacy and not very original
There is something to return to the previous version?
Tried it out. Now it keeps insisting on pointing out my current job status. Uhm that’s personal and what should I put “Ugh Unemployed” And does the same for langauges spoke. Who cares? And why can’t I decide which of my profile is prominent and not. And what’s the point of changing profile pics the old ones are always there. Now I not only have to spend ectra time fiddling with my privacy settings with every change but with every new picture etc.. I have to fiddle with the display AGAIN? Why not improve options like how posts are shared and displayed. make it easier to have degrees of friends with different priacy settings. Let me share pictures with just one list or group. And bring back the real fan pages. These stupid likes, thanks alot I’m a lucky few who everyone who 123,000 people likes knows I like but I don’t know who they are nor search to see if maybe an old friend is in that list? Its like a landlord who paints the outside of a house but never fixes the plumbing, heat or calls the extermiantor!
Where did our bookmarks go that were on the left side of the homepage? Is there a way to get them back on their and, maybe, get the friends off?
Personally, I like the new layout.
As far as pages goes, the Ellen page is the layout that occurs when you merge your place with your page. This is a permanent change and frustrating a ton of users. This also changes the max width of your applications from down to 490px. I’m wondering if this is how pages are going to look in the future? This would be a big game changer in messaging strategies.
New Format flushes Mutual friends, and Likes and can not locate either any more which is over half the reason to be able to share communication with friends on facebook…. Audience participation may get flushed along with the ability to use the site, so your success may be flushed with new format, why tamper with something that works?
How do I add pictures to the 5 pictures on top of my facebook page????? I clicked on the X to many times, and im down to 3 pictures now :( Can someone please help me?????
I’m trying to figure out the same thing. Anyone have any ideas?
Can someone please tell me how to clear a status on the new profile? The old profile had a “clear” , this new profile does not. I just want to clear my status and have nothing there for my status.
Same problem with the pictures on top of my page.. only three left… how to get them back to five? :S
You`ll have to tag yourself in a picture, and then it will automatically show up on the five pictures on top :)
I have my privacy settings set up so that only I can see tagged photos. Is there any other way to pick what pics go at the top of the page?
Yes.
Go to the pictures –> profile pictures
then grab and move pictures
you will find out that profile pictures (thumbs) are changed
I have no photos showing on my new profile page either, they were there and not all gone. I tagged me in a photo and it did not go to the profile page photo bar. Would like to have this feature back
That didn’t work for me :( Are you sure that’s the way to add a photo?
I use Facebook for the verbal interaction. When I want photos, that’s where I go. I don’t want it in my face. Also, it’s way too hard to search for friends anymore when you have to know what browser to use. Revert to the good old days and simplicity.
“If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”
For the most part, I think it could be fun esp. with displaying your interests and maybe doing something creative with the top five pics.
I do agree with some who have commented about the work history being displayed, and other privacy issues. And I was rather horrified when I saw some of the photos they put up there…not ones I wanted to have top billing!
I also noticed that I don’t like how they are displaying my friends, and constantly changing them. That should be an option. It was better when they were all compact, and the friends I most often converse with…it was easy to click on one I needed to contact. Now I must go into the whole list to find someone…and they’re not alphabetically listed, like before!!
There’s an option to view your list of friends alphabetically: On your profile screen, click “Friends” followed by (numbers of friends), then a screen will be displayed with your friends pics displayed in random order. At the very top, there’s a button “Search by name” and two buttons on futher left. Click the furtherst button, then your list of friends are listed alphabetically like before.
is there a science to who is showing up in your visible friends on your profile? Is it random?
I dislike!!!! Too complicated and privacy is not an option!
Hey I also had the same problem I deleted to many pictures and only had 3. I have also found the solution. When I read the introduction to the new layout for the second time, it said that ‘recently tagged’ pictures would appear in the boxes, so just tag yourself in the pictures you want to come up and they start showing up in the empty boxes again, worked for me. A bit stupid though!
Rach x
i did tagmyself but still no pictures, i dont have any pics left cause i went through all the tagged pics, do you know how to fix this
I tagged my photos then they ALL disappeared!
I dont want to look at my own pics on my profile. If someone decides to tag a pic i dont like its going to pop up right on my profile. page. I want to disable that. Also what happened to mutual friends.. I like to see whos connected to me. Things that were good were replaced with visuals that were unneccessary..
i also pressed x too many times to and the photos at the top of the profile are all gone now. tried tagging them but still no pics. anyone have answers?
let me know you find a solution
The ‘Links’ that used to show all the youtube etc links we posted to our own page seems to have disappeared. There is still a ‘links’ button on the home page, but when you click it, it seems to show everyone else’s links besides my own links??
Ads are WAY too big, really … come on … that would have been such an obvious criticism in the development room. People only read headlines of ads, adding a whole paragraph to ad content is not going to make people read them anymore. In fact people will ‘tune out’ more to the ads because they are too much work on the eyes, if the eyes see words they read them mechanically, so we just don’t let our eye go to that side of the screen anymore. I didn’t mind the ads before, sometimes there were some I clicked on … but now my mind will make them invisible.
I need help the same things has happened to me to with the five pictures on the profile ive done tryied tagging myself multipul times even deleting the pictures and uploading them again. its really fustrating me!
why is it that you cant tag your photo again and it still wont pop up. Its really complicated and i liked the old one better
For some reason my photos on the top where there yesterday and today they are gone?? I liked that option that my tagged photos ended up there and now its gone :( Maybe a bug but it works for all my other friends…
Yes, I pressed the x button too so now I only have four pics and am annoyed with the empty fifth box: it just doesn’t look balanced in terms of layout. It is so frustrating that it doesn’t give you the easy option button to select the five pics you want to be displayed. I have my privacy setting set so that only I can view tagged photos so how do I go about this? Also, the four remaining pics on top of my page that are currently being displayed are not tagged photos in the first place, so why do I have to retrieve the hidden one pic by tagging it? (which was hidden by accidentally pressing x button) I would seriously appreciate someone’s help on this…! Facebook should be more user friendly.
i also pressed x too many times to and the photos at the top of the profile are all gone now. tried tagging them but still no pics. anyone have answers?………ME TOO
Do we have to use the new profile? Most of my friends have it and I HATE it!!! I don’t ever want mine to change. Is this inevitable? Or can I just opt to not upgrade to the new format?
Same problem here. I lost all 5 pics top of my profile. I didn´t x them out . Tagging pics again won´t work. There sould be another way??
Same thing, with the pics, tagged them again , but they won’t go back on, I tried to look in the help section on Fb, they show you how to take them off, just not put them on. Anyone have any other ideas on how to fix this?
I am having the exact same problem. The five pictures are all gone and I have no idea how to add them back. When I re-tag myself, the pictures still don’t show up at the top of my profile. It would be great if there was an easy way to pick what 5 pictures people can see.
I’ve even tried to upload new pic to see if it will appear on my top page (since I lost one pic out of five by pressing x button), but even this didn’t work. I’ve looked into facebook’s “help” section (which took me hours) but there seems to be no particular information given on this common problem. I don’t want to give up on solving this problem since there must be a way to retrieve the lost pic…!
The new one does not work for me – too vertical, too cluttered.
I’d really, REALLY like to go back to the previous profile layout. Leave to Facebook to not provide the “undo” option or to hide it deep in some subsection.
Got any suggestions?
i like it it’s pretty cool but now randomly the 5 preview pictures at the top of my page have disappeared for no apparent reason one minute they were there the next they were gone
that was the main feature i liked about the new page and without it it’s pretty much the same as the old layout
Anybody else having this problem and if so know how to get it back?
today i uploaded a new album four photos. tagged myself in each photo. these pictures showed up ax top, as well as the other photos i am tagged in. x out all the photos except the ones posted today, then my profile photos began to appear. so the fifth photo is a profile photos.
ive just tried what you just did with opening a new album with new pictures an still nothing :S
I dont know where the 5 pictures at the top of my profile have gone? I dont know why its gone? :/ is anyone else having the same problem and if so does anyone know how i can fix it please?
i dont have 5 pictures but do have the update…why? how do i get the pictures up there.
Same problem here for the 5 profile pics..I didnt x them or anything and now they are just gone. Tried tagging myslef, re uploading and arranging and still no luck… anyone figure this out yet??
I just wanted to ask…but what about the links I shared in the past? There was this space below in the old profile that listed my links…Once I ‘upgraded’ to the new profile, it’s gone. Where is it?
Dislike, Dislike, Dislike.
Hate the new profile. It seems to be a clusterf*ck and a strain on my eyes. Absolutely hate the Tagged pictures thing up top. I haven’t been tagged in many photos, and most of them I’ve got a beer in my hand, or I simply don’t like them sitting on the top of my page. I found myself X-ing off my photos and ended up with just three and tagging myself in photos that I wanted on top. Not to mention people who aren’t photogenic will dislike this as well.
Agree with too little white space, it’s straining on the eyes, but it could be worse (myspace)….
Too many ads, too many pictures in general on the page.
I highly dislike this new “View Friendship” thing. It’s getting less and less private and more and more stalkerish. I don’t need to see how good i’m friends with someone and how I interact with them, and if I don’t need to see it, surely the whole of my friendslist doesn’t.
I cannot find my links anywhere.
SAME prob with pics being gone at top!! It’s sooo frustrating!!!
Hey I figured it out!! it took me awhile but if ANY of your photos have disappeared from the top of your profile, this is how to get them back:
1. Go to your profile
2. Drag your cursor over your profile picture, then click “Change Picture” at the top right hand corner
3. Scroll down to the bottom of the page & click “Reset Photostream”
4. Go to your profile & it should be there!
@ Raqual This is a fantastic progress…! however, though I can find the “Reset Photostream” button as you instructed, it doesn’t enable me to click it…!
I manage to restore my hidden photo which disappeared from the top of my profile now by (the below is a variation to Raqual’s instruction:
1. Go to your profile
2. Drag your cursor over your profile picture, then click “Change Picture” at the top right hand corner
3. Click “select an image file on your computer” (so I selected any photo which I didn’t mind being displayed at the top of my profile from my computer)
4. Go to your profile & and the missing photo space should be filled now with five compete photos…!
Thanks for the info. We love the photostream feature, because you can “get creative” with it: http://reface.me/hacks/awesome-facebook-profile-photos-header-hack/
I don’t like the new profile page at all…I don’t want the information about my school and work to be the first thing people see, and I hate the photos…1 profile photo gives you the chance to decide how you want to be presented to the FB world, but now you’ve got 5 other photos that just show up.
And why did they remove the status bar from the top? That was my favorite part.
Really wish we were able to customize this. Not happy with it at all.
In the previous incarnation of FB, I could have my “top friends” without indicating they were my top friends. Now I have to create a list that says they are my top friends. I don’t want everyone to know who is or isn’t a top friend. Why did they take that away?? I hate this and I had to go in and redo my privacy settings. It’s getting more complicated. Now the beginning of comments we make show up. How do I hide that. Before, it just indicated on my profile page that I made a comment, not actually showing the comment. That meant that unless someone was a friend of the friend, they couldn’t see it. Why are you revealing everything?? I’m not young, therefore putting everything out there isn’t a priority for me. I’m getting really upset with what FB is doing to reveal more and more of my life. I should be the one to determine what is important, not FB!
I don’t like how every single comment you make on someone’s post is in your recent activity. I also don’t like seeing random people I’m not even friends with in my Top News and Most Recent posts just because one of my friends commented on it or liked it. Way too much information.
How do you clear your status? There is nothing that says clear status like before. If I scroll down and delete post it’s still my status, isn’t it?
There is not a SINGLE THING that I like about it! I didn’t see until after I upgraded that you can’t change back to the old one. How could Mark Z. not make it optional? I’ll probably delete my account to see if it brings the old format back. Do you know if that will work?
want to go back to old face book page,how do i do this
Unfortunately, it’s a one way upgrade and you can’t go back to the old one. Maybe if enough people complain about not having the option to go back to the previous format or close their accounts altogether, they’ll change it but, I doubt it.
My favorite feature of Facebook up to now has been my ability as well as my FB friends ability to access my links with one click and for them to be able to subscribe to them if they wish – its the most effective and fastest way for someone to find out what I’m interested in in all areas without having to slog through thousands of individual posts . Same with likes. Much to my dismay, I see no way to do that with the new layout! If this is not corrected, or we are not given the option to stick with the old layout, my enjoyment factor as a Facebooker will go down by at least 70%. Anyone else have any thoughts on this point??
new profile is very very irritating …. i hate FACEBOOK now… too bad to see my profile now….pls try to change or give an option to change to old profile..
im not so happy about the changes to the facebook fan page. The custom landing pages are now pointless!!! :-(
Likewise, I do not want anyone to tag me in a silly photo and have it take priority and show up at the top of my profile. And linger there until I next log in and delete it.
There definitely should be an option to disable tagged photos from appearing there.
HUGE drawback.
Has anyone figured out how to clear your status? Please let me know if you have.
I would like to know how to clear your status also. Sometimes I don’t have anything up for my status.
I used to be able to see my ‘like’ pages down the left hand margain. Now I can’t see them at all.
Does anyone know how I can make them visable again.
Thanks
how can i change my profile layouts into a new one???pls tell me..
I love the fact the fan pages can now be organized within the profile and people who are choosy in becoming a fan will be hugely benefited by being able to categorize.
The option to see friendship between two individuals over FB is also a cool addition.
There’s no personal description box where you can place website and quotes on the new profile..
The old one is personal advertising friendly..and more expressive!
:)
It seems like a great loss not to have websites linked out in the open. A horrible loss. Thoughts?
Agrree completely! The deletion of a website on the front page was dumb! Our company’s #1 we referral source was facebook, and by a large margin. Now, we get ZERO,
I want to preface this by saying that I’m an IT Program Manager so I’m not here to just complain about change. I tend to embrace change, as long is it ultimately adds value to the end user. I have also seen a lot of comments asking for the ability to maintain both the old and new profile and I don’t think that is an effective soluton for anyone either; the correct solution is a profile that works for everyone (the old profile could use improvements but the new one is not the answer to say the least). Which leads me to my comments… :)
I find it ironic that in their attempts to increase their appeal to the business user, Facebook is forgetting their core audience, the individual. Without individual users, businesses have no reason to interact on Facebook. I maintain both an individual and Business Fan Page on Facebook. What I found incredibly disappointing with the new profile page is that all of my customization options remained with my Fan Page, yet these were stripped on my personal page. What was left is a generic shell that looks much like my old Myspace page when that site first started. I suppose the headline is nice, but on the other hand, my friends already know that about me. And what Facebook seems to forget, is unlike Linkedin or Twitter or even Myspace is that the primary objective for Facebook users is to stay in touch with people they know, not to meet new people.
The profile tabs, pronounced placement of status and intro tag, these are all gone and I have to wade through huge icons of interests and company names and schools before I see anything even remotely unique. I used to carefully maintain and share Notes and Links as distinct tabs on my profiles; now Notes are a pain to find and Links have disappeared altogether. Certain causes I was passionate about (like Save a Dog for instance) were prominately displayed on a profile tab as a reflection of my personality; this is now buried. People are increasingly dependent on the wall to find any glimmer of individuality. Yes Facebook needs a way to generate revenue and I applaud their intelligent marketing efforts to reach out to this community; however, they should not do this at the expense of their core user group.
And I would also throw on this whole tirade, my continuing frustration with Facebooks careless attitude about individual privacy. Again this is triggered by commerce and nothing else; if they are going to continue to add these open type changes and functions, they need to announce them more prominently and default all functions to the most restrictive privacy settings, not to the most open. Again, stay true to your initial mission, which was to help people stay in touch with their loved ones. I don’t appreciate Facebook’s attempts of enforced socialization on my behalf; I can choose who I want to interact with, thank you very much!
On a final note, I get the sense that Facebook doesn’t do a very good job of gathering feedback from their users. It seems as if they have millions of users who would be happy to provide feedback and every time they make a huge change, the change is met with shock and displeasure. I understand that much of this is the whole concept that many people hate change and are going to complain about any change. But when you see such a huge volume of comments, many well thought out and balanced, you have to wonder if they are taking advantage of opportunities to utilize end users in the requirements and testing phases of their changes.
Xenia, your comments are intelligent as well as highly perceptive and on point! It also doesn’t hurt that they line up with my concerns about the new layout almost point by point! LOL! My biggest complaint has been that two of the most enjoyable, useful and time saving features appear to be gone entirely – Links and Likes. I use those on a daily basis to share my interests and opinions with friends and to receive the same from them! Now it seems I will soon lose those abilities with no option or recourse! I sincerely hope that Facebook takes proper notice of your comments!!
Lamar
I agree with what Lamar said with regards to the likes not showing on your profile. I love to be able to make comments and suggestions on my likes and now I have to type them in individually in the search function.
Apart from this I think it is okay
Yes,you are right.I think that they are not minding users opinion,and that’s not fair.They owe it all to the users and now they’re doing all this against must people will,think that with this they show us no respect and i’m also disappointed.Now facebook is not the same it used to be.I like changes,but just when they are for the better,when i changed to the new profile i did it because i trusted the change would be for good,but when i saw my profile has turned into such a disaster i felt like they just had taken me for a fool not allowing me to switch back to the old profile.I never thought that they would be so narrowminded to make such a bad change.
Your critique was excellent, and I couldn’t agree more. I don’t think I can take many more of these forced “improvements” from Facebook, but they don’t seem to care.
I don’t like that there is no longer a space for bigger topics you are focused on, vs things you might just have noticed. I guess that was the “say something about yourself” section…. I used to be able to post there from Tweet Deck and that was really useful…now all comments or posts seem to have the same weight…that makes it less useful and will make Twitter more of a go-to outlet for promoting big ideas…
tell face book we want selectable profile layouts. most of us complaining are artist and we want a profile that we can create to display our creative points of interest. if fb allows different selectable layouts that would be savy, it didn’t have it right to begin with.
It’s not going to be long before I just delete my profile completely. I ceased using it for networking with friends because of creeping privacy concerns. At that point I maintained a FB profile only leaving myself open to to people who might want to “message” me. I used to use the bio (about me) section to list some of my likes or short anecdotes that I would change up from time to time.
I would be ambivalent sometimes, but had decided to make my fan pages public – so that that I could “promote” (in the most modest sense) pages that I am a fan of. Now with the new format, my bio is subjugated to all the fan pages under Arts & Entertainment” and other Likes and Activities. I’m not egocentric, but I absolutely do not care for having my Bio info restricted by the dramatically condensed word count, and having it way at the bottom or maybe even off the page, depending on how many “Likes” are on the page.
In a nutshell, I am just about fed up with Facebook. Thinking of getting out.
I woke up this am to see my page changed and someone from facebook had selected the worst stuff from my stuff
It looked soooo unartistic, and downright ugly.
How dare they
There was one photo from someone who defriended me because i complained of his overuse of the F word and other vitriol and a photo of my grandchild with the other grandmother who is involved in my son’s custody case.
I feel like sueing fb
How about a class action suit.
!
what happened to the right sidebar that listed your friends and had a green dot besides who was on line
I hate and love the Facebook updates, in a way I enjoy the old style better than the new, but you guys must admit that its getting more tech each day! Looking forward to seeing what Mark has planned in the years to come!