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Facebook "stream" redesign: Disruptive companies don't listen to their customers

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Re: Facebook "stream" redesign: Disruptive companies don't listen to their customers

#11

Post by grag »

cos wrote: post #7
ChrisMac wrote: post #4

I'm not a huge Facebook user, but I don't get what the big deal with the change is. They just made the news feed a little more prominent. The older design from a few weeks ago emphasized that already. Whenever I logged on, that was the main thing I checked anyways - updates about what my friends were up to. If anything, I think it's good. It'll give me more opportunity to keep in touch with people in little ways hear…

They've done a lot more than that. Most significantly: 1. There is no more news feed, they've eliminated it! What you now see on the homepage is basically a "status update feed". While they've enhanced status updates so that they now combine the former share/post functionality, every other kind of action that used to go in the news feed is no longer there. This has a lot of corrolaries. For example: 2. Apps can no lo…

#2 is not true. Stories posted automatically via the API won't show up in friend's newsfeeds. But apps can popup a "feed form" which allows users to preview the content the app wants to post to their wall (this can include an image or embedded swf). If the users posts it then that content will show up in all their friend's newsfeeds. I think this format is actually much better for apps.

Re: Facebook "stream" redesign: Disruptive companies don't listen to their customers

#12

Post by phoxix2 »

cos wrote: post #5
devicenull wrote: post #2

Every time facebook makes a change, everyone whines about it for a month then actually likes it. Why would this change be any different? It would seem people are just perpetually afraid of any sort of change at all

You're making a mistake in not looking at the substance of what people have said and are saying, and collapsing several very different episodes into "every time facebook makes a change". Reactions to Facebook changes, and results, have actually been quite different. The first big outcry was about the introduction of newsfeeds. People were upset because Facebook sprang it on them by surprise, and suddenly information…

Thank you for nailing it.

While its true that Facebook users always bitch and moan about changes. This time they're bitchin' and moanin' annnddd using a very key word: confusing.

I fail to see why A) Web developers need to put down their users constantly, instead of working with them. B) Why web developers think that Twitter can do no wrong.

The elitist holier-than-thou web developer herd mentality is mind-boggling.

Re: Facebook "stream" redesign: Disruptive companies don't listen to their customers

#13

Post by cos »

grag wrote: post #11
cos wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They've done a lot more than that. Most significantly: 1. There is no more news feed, they've eliminated it! What you now see on the homepage is basically a "status update feed". While they've enhanced status updates so that they now combine the former share/post functionality, every other kind of action that used to go in the news feed is no longer there. This has a lot of corrolaries. For example: 2. Apps can no lo…

#2 is not true. Stories posted automatically via the API won't show up in friend's newsfeeds. But apps can popup a "feed form" which allows users to preview the content the app wants to post to their wall (this can include an image or embedded swf). If the users posts it then that content will show up in all their friend's newsfeeds. I think this format is actually much better for apps.

It's possible (though not very likely IMO) that that could turn out to be "much better" once app writers adapt their apps to it, and people get used to it. In the meantime, though, the viral aspect of apps was based on publishing actions people take, as a side-effect of people taking those actions, and that just isn't happening now. You do NOT see this stuff on your homepage anymore.

As I pointed out, it's not just apps. Photo tagging, friending, and a host of other Facebook actions that used to be viral aren't anymore.

Re: Facebook "stream" redesign: Disruptive companies don't listen to their customers

#14

Post by cos »

SingAlong wrote: post #9
vaksel wrote: post #3

actually they do...they just don't listen to the 1% that bitches and moans.

Totally agree with your point. The new design is actually a lot better. In the older design, I had to wade thru a lot of visual crap before I got to stuff like news feed or my own wall. but the new design has made it easier.

Are you really comparing the new design with what was the case a month ago? You sound like you're comparing the previous design with the older 2006-2008 design.

Re: Facebook "stream" redesign: Disruptive companies don't listen to their customers

#15

Post by cos »

chiffonade wrote: post #10

The real question is: who has nothing else better going on in their life that they must complain about a FB redesign?

... or that they must comment about a discussion of it on a hacker news posting of a blog post discussing it? Yup, that's the real question, I'm sure.

Re: Facebook "stream" redesign: Disruptive companies don't listen to their customers

#16

Post by ealar »

I like the facebook redesign. I think it's snappy and I can still easily get to all the information I need when looking up contact info. Further, the AJAX loads pages considerably faster, and in many cases incrementally (e.g. pictures), radically decreasing the effective "response time" of the site.

I really have to wonder why we're even talking about it in a controversial way instead of an analysis of the technological changes and their effect on the site. It seems this is the wrong site for a controversial facebook design argument.

Re: Facebook "stream" redesign: Disruptive companies don't listen to their customers

#17

Post by unalone »

cos wrote: post #7
ChrisMac wrote: post #4

I'm not a huge Facebook user, but I don't get what the big deal with the change is. They just made the news feed a little more prominent. The older design from a few weeks ago emphasized that already. Whenever I logged on, that was the main thing I checked anyways - updates about what my friends were up to. If anything, I think it's good. It'll give me more opportunity to keep in touch with people in little ways hear…

They've done a lot more than that. Most significantly: 1. There is no more news feed, they've eliminated it! What you now see on the homepage is basically a "status update feed". While they've enhanced status updates so that they now combine the former share/post functionality, every other kind of action that used to go in the news feed is no longer there. This has a lot of corrolaries. For example: 2. Apps can no lo…

There is no more news feed, they've eliminated it! What you now see on the homepage is basically a "status update feed". While they've enhanced status updates so that they now combine the former share/post functionality, every other kind of action that used to go in the news feed is no longer there.

That's not true at all. Apps still publish to the feed. That's how I found out about this Facebook poll: it published an update to my feed.

Furthermore, the Highlights on the side is the exact same as the old feed. You get app updates there as well.

... the same is true for other things: For example, when someone tags a photo of one of your friends, you'll no longer see that on your homepage. You'll only be notified of the new photos if the person who posted the photos is your friend.

Again not true. I get tagged photo updates on my main feed.

I understand the Facebook change dislike, because people hate big changes, but people are just blindly making things up now.

Re: Facebook "stream" redesign: Disruptive companies don't listen to their customers

#18

Post by chiffonade »

cos wrote: post #15
chiffonade wrote: post #10

The real question is: who has nothing else better going on in their life that they must complain about a FB redesign?

... or that they must comment about a discussion of it on a hacker news posting of a blog post discussing it? Yup, that's the real question, I'm sure.

I'm talking about the users who deem it a major event in their lives that their social portal changed layouts, not the entrepreneurial hackers discussing how this has implications for future profits for their own projects.

Think more meta, man.

Re: Facebook "stream" redesign: Disruptive companies don't listen to their customers

#19

Post by blader »

cos wrote: post #13
grag wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

#2 is not true. Stories posted automatically via the API won't show up in friend's newsfeeds. But apps can popup a "feed form" which allows users to preview the content the app wants to post to their wall (this can include an image or embedded swf). If the users posts it then that content will show up in all their friend's newsfeeds. I think this format is actually much better for apps.

It's possible (though not very likely IMO) that that could turn out to be "much better" once app writers adapt their apps to it, and people get used to it. In the meantime, though, the viral aspect of apps was based on publishing actions people take, as a side-effect of people taking those actions, and that just isn't happening now. You do NOT see this stuff on your homepage anymore. As I pointed out, it's not just a…

The implicit news feed stories were never really a strong source of virality. Our current data is showing that the new stream is performing quite a bit better for us, but YMMV.

Re: Facebook "stream" redesign: Disruptive companies don't listen to their customers

#20

Post by mustpax »

vaksel wrote: post #3

actually they do...they just don't listen to the 1% that bitches and moans.

Well, any change invites considerable resistance. So I'd even say they have to ignore more than 1%.

Most of us tech savvy people don't realize this, but a lot of people (if not most) use software through memorization. They memorize their path to the most common tasks that they use it for, and stick to those. Call it the 80-20 of use cases. A really good UI allows people to learn these new tasks relatively easily, but that is not to say this is not cumbersome for most people regardless. Any change requires users to pause and invest time in discovery before they can actually do what they want to do.

So, any change is annoying in itself for these users; and that is completely regardless of the merits of the change. User adoption after users are (not to sound too fascist) forced to accept changes is the real measure of the legitimacy of these changes, not the initial reaction.

As software engineers and designers we have to have a much longer term understanding of feature growth and functionality, if it was up to users it would always be more of the same which gets too complicated way too quickly. You add one more button of that much desired functionality and pretty soon you're left with remote controllers with a hundred buttons.

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