by Michelle Lentz
Back in early May, the Facebook Developers blogged about the delayed profile redesign. Since then, I’ve become a “fan” of the Facebook Previews page. In addition, Facebook led a press walkthrough of the proposed new design today. I wasn’t there, being in Cincinnati, but I eavesdropped via TechCrunch. The new design, at least in its current state, is created to truly optimize user-generated content and interaction. Whether blending tagged photos or giving users control over their Feeds, the focus is on the information and communication.
Yesterday, the developers posted an Overview album to the Facebook Previews page. The Overview album is basically a short slideshow, with screen captures of what may be coming. Note that the slide show makes it abundantly clear that these designs could still change before launch, and the screenshots over at TechCrunch do seem to be slightly different. The three big changes are the use of tabs, the Publisher, and top navigation.
The new tabs include Feed, Info, Wall, Photos, and Applications. A “+” tab is also included, where you can put your favorite application(s) into its own tab. The new design is similar (although more complex, naturally) to the design of the iPhone Facebook app.
The Feed tab contains your Feed, similar to your Feed page that currently exists in Facebook. I’m guessing that you will have more control, however, over what is displayed. The Info tab consists of static information, which seems to be the information currently displayed on your Profile page (basic info, personal info, education and work). The Wall tab is still your Wall, just a little more hidden. According to TechCrunch, the Wall may or may not end up integrated with your Feed. The Photos tab displays your photos, as well as photos tagged of you. There is no longer a distinction between photos you tagged of yourself and those tagged by your friends. Your albums are also visible on this tab.
The final tab, the Applications (Boxes) tab, is where all those crazy applications can reside. They no longer need to clutter your main page. I appreciate this. I often go through and kill off applications in order to keep my page uncluttered. I also hide most of my applications in the extended profile option. Extended profiles never seemed to really catch on however, as none of my friends seem to use them. Applications can be given their own tab as well, which will be viewable from a drop-down menu that pops up when you click the “+” tab.
Via TechCrunch, “Applications can add text and images on the Info tab page to provide more information about a user. List top friends, top music choices, etc.” Apparently at the press viewing today, this tab was called the Boxes tab, although the screenshots from yesterday call it Applications. That’s just an example of how in flux the design still is.
The Publisher is a new tool that lives in the Feed tab.
According to the Facebook developers wiki, the Publisher is the primary feature for users to post information and messages on their own Feed tab and on that of their friends.
Users can use the Publisher to create rich content including posting photos, sharing videos, writing notes, and whatever content ideas applications can provide. The Publisher will be a central focus of communication and sharing in the new profile. It sits right on top of a user’s Feed, inviting the user or others to add content. Applications can integrate into the Publisher to provide rich experiences for creating or finding content to post into their own and their friends’ Feeds. And these stories can leverage any of the new Feed story sizes.
Feed stories can be one line, short, and full. You will need to approve short and full stories as they are published. The Wall will now be just another application for creating content. Instead of attaching rich content, such as a video, to a wall post, you will be able to post the video directly to your own feed or to that of your friends.
I have to admit that the user of the Publisher to post to everyone’s feeds sort of worries me. One thing I like about Facebook is that it is so much cleaner in appearance than MySpace. I’m afraid that videos and photos and everything else right on the front tab of everyone’s profile will ruin that clean appearance. I’m going to hope that I’m misinterpreting the user of the Publisher. Ideally, I won’t be able to post videos, as an example, to my friends’ Feeds, per se, and the Publisher is just an easier way to post videos to their Wall.
In addition to navigating your profile via tabs, you’ll still be able to navigate via a top navigation bar. The biggest change here is the Applications option. This menu drops down to reveal each application to which you subscribe, including sorting by Favorites and Most Recent.
Other than the Publisher tool, which has me a little concerned, I really like the focus on content and communication. My biggest worry with the redesign is user education. This is a really big shift in design, and it might scare some folks off. While I believe that the younger set on Facebook (millenials, and those slightly younger or older) will easily adapt, Facebook has also been acquiring a slightly more mature crowd lately (Gen X and older). One of the great things about FaceBook is that my technically-challenged cousin had no problem creating a profile. She’s now used to Facebook – she’s comfortable – and this is a big change. I suspect that she’ll be freaked out and never come back to the site. I suspect she’s not the only one who will react like this. I can only assume that Facebook has some sort of user education plan in place to make the transition as painless as possible.
According to the TechCrunch post, Facebook plans to walk users through the process of using the new profile. I’m interested in their plans just from a Training & Development perspective. TechCrunch also mentions that the planned launch date is sometime in June.