New Facebook UI: a better architecture for participation
After a few delays Facebook is set to launch their updated UI on monday, though anyone with an FB account can already access the new look and feel on http://www.new.facebook.com/.
I find it kind of funny that people are nagging about the delayed launch. It’s about a week late… which is quite decent considering the rule for most pre-announced updates/launches in the software business seem to be a year or two past the original date (if they’re ever launched).
Anyhow. I think it looks quite nice. They’ve got rid of the bulky, cluttered three column layout, in which both the outer columns were almost always wasted. The feed itself is very friendfeedesque, though I think it’s fair to say that Facebook was doing the whole activity stream before the Friendfeed guys quit Google ;) Calls to action in terms of participation are everywhere, pushing the user to add updates, photos, notes etc., but I think they’ve done a solid job in balancing the number of calls for participation on each screen.
Their aim is obvious: make people talk. Their strategy for this is creating more reasons to talk and making it easier to do so. Or in pseudo-Internet-social-psychology-babble: they’re increasing the number of social objects on the site and lowering the threshold for participation.
Conversations equals stickiness equals more conversation equals more stickiness etc.
Overall it’s a job very well done. The layout is a lot more flexible and easier on the eyes, and the navigation is more contextually relevant and much less invasive. And most interesting of all: the new layout and uncluttered interface makes the site a whole more interesting for advertising. Maybe they can finally push their RPU above 5 dollars/year? ;)
