Visually pretty, but the grid is completely non-functional. I don't know where to start looking to get at the information I go to Facebook to find. The other pages look better, but still seem to be a summation of current design trends rather than any sort of innovative new way to display the information (which is fine, but not interesting to me).
I also agree that it looks a lot nicer because of the high-end stock photos.
Edit: scrolling down further, there are some other UI refreshes that I do think improve the experience overall - the calendar and photo album views stood out to me. But I think it's important to use ugly people with weird names in your designs to gauge how it will actually look in production! The dark theme on pages, for example, looks very clean with Apple and Adobe as featured, but I imagine will look pretty dreary to stare at all day.
As someone that stopped using Facebook shortly after they rolled out the Timeline (ironically after I spent hours setting mine up in Developer mode), I have completely missed posts someone made on my wall, only to have to reply with an apology weeks to months later when I was more thorough.
I think my 'timeline' should be representative of photos I've uploaded, posts I've made that I want to highlight and events I went to. My 'wall' should be a straight-forward top-to-bottom feed of stuff I've posted and stuff people are sharing with me.
Maybe it's the way I've got my Facebook setup but I always get a notification on Facebook when someone posts to my wall, so there is no chance of missing it.
I've missed them even with this on, simply because I also wade through/ignore a lot of other notification emails from Facebook (birthdays, events) or just don't check my email during travel/vacation. I've also seen the email, gone to the site and thought the person deleted it before I found it. I'm fine blaming some of this on user error, but I still think it's bad design.
For an example, if you are on groups or many people wish you happy birthday, it is very easy to miss a lot of updates. I missed about fifth of them last year and even several distinct posts, which happened to occur same day as I got many notifications.
There feels like two Facebook designs, the timeline, and other user pages.
I hate the timeline, as I can't track two columns, and probably wouldn't like a grid also for the same reason.
I logged in to Facebook a minute a go just out of curiousity, and struggle to actually find my homepage, first I get badgered by Facebook, I then accidentally stumble upon my Timeline (which I hate), I then click the Facebook logo to go to a homepage, which happens to be a feed - or rather what I deem my own homepage. Confused! And it happens every time.
Scanning two columns is not easy at all. The right column has some fixed elements but it also has regular newsfeed elements scattered around. It's really a terrible design.
Not the above user, but the two column format was definitely jarring. I've since then gotten used to it -- and grown to appreciate it -- but it definitely took a lot of adjusting.
Not so much the timeline, but the constantly changing "Sort:[most recent / top stories]" setting is frustrating.
I really only ever want that to be on most recent.
My other problem with Facebook interface is that I just don't know where to go to "do stuff" - eg: if I want to unlike a company page. There's a bunch of little icons in the top blue bar (10 clickable things in that bar), and then there is the list down the LHS, and the almost hidden follow / report this post button.
I do like the fact that it's being refined; I notice the occasional difference. And the new privacy announcements were clear enough.
I guess I don't use FB like most people use FB. I only have less than 50 friends and I don't like a bunch of products or companies.
The fact that it's not easily scannable, when looking at someone's profile I'd much rather prefer it to be a top-to-bottom list of updates (status, photos, video's, likes, ...) instead of a timeline with boxes scattered left and right mixed with other nonsense like places, friends, ...
As an archive it's great, you can exactly see what someone liked/posted in previous months, but it's not a feed, and that's what I would like someone's profile to be, a feed of his activity.
Everyone points out two-column layout as problematic to read. I however don't have any issue with it. It's not in any way more difficult for me to scan, and it also looks aesthetically appealing (sans photo cropping errors from time to time). Recent popularity of Pinterest (5+ columns) would suggest that it's also a non-issue for many people.
Also, does that mean iOS and Android both fail with their grid designs for app buttons. I would be interested if someone can find an actual UX article with solid facts.
> does that mean iOS and Android both fail with their grid designs for app buttons.
Of course not. That's a highly efficient way to represent visual icons. Facebook has a much different focus: for one, it's a linear idea (in its current formulation), either by date or by how facebook decides to prioritize your stuff (grumble).
That said, I would probably much prefer to eschew all icons on android for a nice text list.
Not inherently; this is just another example of "correlation is not causation". There are plenty of ugly things/websites easy to use, and pretty things that are hard to use. There are also plenty of pretty things easy to use, and ugly things hard to use.
It's not a logical fallacy. People complain about 2-column layout of timeline and 2+-column layout of this "new look", because they have too many columns to follow at the same time, while I have yet to see anyone complaining about 5+-column layout of Pinterest.
The assumption is that because both designs share a common attribute they are both intended for the same purpose and therefore if one design is bad for a particular reason, the other design must also be bad for the exact same reason.
This isn't necessarily true with Pinterest, which has a different purpose to Facebook, and therefore likely requires a different UI.
>But I think it's important to use ugly people with weird names in your designs to gauge how it will actually look in production!
I .. I'm not sure if you're serious, but that is either smart, insulting or both. It's true that cleavage and nice smiles were there, but noting it as a non-production look, - that's a bit bleak.
The design looks great. I can't wait to hear my friends opinions as I don't use Facebook on regular basis.
My friends aren't overwhelmingly ugly, but they certainly don't take production-quality pictures. Judging a social app's beauty by the stock photos is like judging the fit of a shirt by how it looks on the model.
this is not a fair analogy. if a model chooses to wear a shirt that fit poorly, then you are allowed to question the model's ability to dress themselves.
likewise, if Facebook chooses to saturate their pages with images they know are generally poorly shot, you are allowed to question Facebook's ability to dress itself.
but facebook doesn't choose what photos get uploaded. They simply provide the platform for it and the content is up to the users. Most users take photos with camera phones, not DSLRs.
But to be fair, when you present your designs for the consideration of stock holders ( which this probably is) its important to make it look its best and since Facebook users technically can upload awesome DSLR style photos and it makes the design look far better, I forgive him and understand that this kind of presentation is more nessesary than really representing what it will look like.
your argument is fallacious in that i never made the assertion that Facebook chose what photos got uploaded. my point is exactly the opposite of that. (but i reserve some responsibility here- see my other response which clarifies a fallacy in my own argument).
a. Facebook does not get to choose what photos get uploaded
b. Facebook knows the overwhelming majority of these photos are of poor quality
as such, it would be short sighted for Facebook to incorporate a design which relied so heavily on shitty user generated photos.
I'm not sure what point you're trying to make. Most comments above your's point out that the linked design prototype looks attractive mostly due to the high quality images. If implemented as the actual Facebook design, much of the appeal would be lost. That is, the prototype did not take "shit user generated photos" into designs at all. Facebook on the other hand, does.
> as such, it would be short sighted for Facebook to incorporate a design which relied so heavily on shitty user generated photos.
The point is, the new layout discussed here relies in some way on the pictures being not shitty. The discussion here is about a layout for content that is not under Facebook's control.
your confusion may stem from the fact that i mistook the original analogy. they were calling the shirt into question. my response was calling the model into question. my mistake should be clear if you read both posts carefully. i will elaborate just in case.
every photo on Facebook is user generated. an overwhelming majority of them are bad photos. Facebook is completely aware of this.
as such, it would be an irresponsible design choice for Facebook to create such a huge presence for those photos, like the design proposal does. likewise, it is irresponsible of the proposal author to only use high resolution stock photos of decent looking people for their design.
perhaps my original post was not crystal clear. in retrospect i maintain that it was a fine explanation, albeit terse- and out of context given my misinterpretation. regardless of my post's clarity, your response makes you sound like a dick.
You've descended to name calling, taking offense over people not realizing your "mistake should be clear".
I respectfully submit that had what you meant to say been so clear, or had you followed your own advice to "read both posts carefully", perhaps you wouldn't have made the mistake twice.
not offended by any realization or lack thereof. i conceded; my point was entirely backwards given my misinterpretation. but the parent reply didn't warrant an apologetic tone. snark begets snark. i don't think "your tone sounds dickish" is name calling. but you're right, uncalled for nonetheless.
I'm kind of joking about ugly (and completely serious about the names[1]), but using real photos in your mockup will give you a much better idea of how it will look in the real world. Sometimes the lack of consistent polish will make the whole thing fall apart, so something that looks great with high-quality stock photos will look terribly with everyday average photos. I'd bet that would be the case here, with the focus on "clean" design.
Of course if you're making a website for models or photographers, then ignore that completely. The take-away here is to know your audience, and design accordingly. Facebook should be (and currently is) optimized for getting a quick pulse on what's happening in your social circles, and the designs presented here are a poor way to accomplish that.
[1] Long names cause weird word-wrapping and overflow issues in many designs. India seems to have a high density of (by my standards) unusually-long names, so if you expect to have a lot of Indian users that kind of thing is really important to consider.
> It's true that cleavage and nice smiles were there
Well, 50% of the people on Facebook don't have cleavage. The other 50% are doing duck faces instead of smiling. You can't design around some abstract ideal.
>> but still seem to be a summation of current design trends rather than any sort of innovative new way to display the information
>> I also agree that it looks a lot nicer because of the high-end stock photos.
Exactly. This looks like a first-year design school project for these, and so many other reasons.
This design would fall apart without visually simple photography that tailor fits to the grid. The right way to approach a redesign would be to collect an aggregate of typical facebook photos, and use them as examples.
Exactly my thoughts. It's funny it ends with "lets focus on a functional and engaging user experience" - that's exactly what Facebook does right now.
In terms of graphic design, it's a huge improvement, not so for usability/ux. The timeline is chaotic. Small type. Navigation/content areas undefined, too much layering.
Perhaps I'm in the minority here but I never go to facebook to find specific information, it's more of just a perusal of crap to waste time. In the regard I believe a grid would be an adequate design to move to as it's more apt to visually scanning items which is typically what I do now. The only caveat I can see is that items in a straight line lend the eye to snapping back to the original position. Not sure if a staggered setup would fix that issue or if slight archs would help.
Although, the effort should be applauded none the less. While I don't agree with the execution, it doesn't mean someone shouldn't get any credit for the endeavor.
This navigation and grid layout looks ironically similar to the new and redesigned MySpace. When screenshots of the new MySpace were first revealed, there was lots of hype and praise for the new and aesthetically sharp designs. But now that users are able to access and use the product, haven't heard much more besides the usability being poor and product being an example of feature overkill. I would predict a similar result if Facebook were to implement this
totally agree, this has nothing to do with the function of facebook. The designers should follow more Dieter Rams 10 principle and less Design trends :)
This seems like a pretty common mistake among designers. As a matter of fact, Facebook made this same mistake themselves not too long ago. When they release the "cover photo" feature, they showed off how great it looked when applied to a bunch of professional designers' profiles. When normal people started uploading low-res, vertically oriented images, it was instantly clear how silly of an idea the cover photo is.
Facebook seems to acknowledge this since now if you view a person's profile, it automatically scrolls past the cover photo so you don't even see most of it.
Cover photo a bad idea? Thats a weird thing to say because after facebook made cover photos available twitter got a header cover, then google plus, and even app.net... The cover photo tells a lot about the person
I just uploaded a version with some crap instead [1], and it still works fine. These Metro styled tiles looks great whatever content you put in, the problem is the space wasted to achieve this look.
Facebook is about displaying posts in descending order. This screenshot is way to confusing. It's too hard to follow posts. It may work for, say, Pinterest but it wouldn't work for Twitter and Facebook.
I won't speak for anyone else, but better friends would certainly improve my Facebook experience. Unfortunately, I would be unlikely to improve theirs similarly.
The main problem I have with the stock photos is that they were all picked to match the color scheme. How is it going to look with random photos and clashing colors?
Came here to say it won't look as pretty when you replace all those photos with random images taken by random people from their phones but the parent beat me to it.
This doesn't take into account the fact that not all photos are stock photos, not all monitors are good at rendering fine serif fonts on dark backgrounds, some users need affordances for buttons and interactors, and that the fluid grid with no spacing whatsoever between content areas makes some information nearly impossible to scan.
For years, before Behance redesigned their layout (which I think was sometime last year), the way that it sorted projects when you stumbled across the site was by popularity, so the popular ones just kept getting more popular. A project called the "Facebook Facelift" from 2009 (http://www.behance.net/gallery/Facebook-Facelift/314489) was (is?) the most popular project on the site, and is equally thorough with a video to boot. I'm going to take a guess that the designer here was looking to piggyback on the success that project had, rather than create an honestly useable/consistent design (not that this is a justification of how poor some of the concepts are, but rather a reason why someone would spend so much time working on something as tedious as this despite the UX issues it creates).
Aside from the obvious "this looks like the new myspace and windows 8 mashed together", I would be curious to see how this concept would fare with what people ACTUALLY post to Facebook. People with no concept of image quality or resolution. People I call my friends :)
They weren't thorough enough to really bother with much of the text anywhere, given the amount of lorem ipsum and many-gendered John Smiths.
Content wasn't really top of the list of priorities, it seems, which I think is a bit of a mistake if you're trying to 're-design' something driven entirely by content.
Despite that, this concept is pretty much all about an in-your-face layout of pretty pictures that looks incredibly difficult to make any real sense of, and might as well be a collage of 2013's cargo-cult trends-to-come.
Content wasn't really top of the list of priorities, it seems, which I think is a bit of a mistake if you're trying to 're-design' something driven entirely by content.
This reminds me of all of the times where I enountered disappointment that the actual functional implementation "didn't look as good" as the flat mockups because the actual content had sections of varying sizes.
Content in the real world? It's messy and uneven. If you can't design for that, you're doing more harm than good.
IIRC Steve Jobs would terminate a design review if any placeholder images, lorem ipsum, etc. appeared anywhere. If the design didn't represent an actual use case he didn't want to waste time on it.
I scrolled up and down for about 15 seconds trying to figure out if this screenshot was supposed to be a concatenation of multiple Walls or if it was one long wall view (I think it's the latter):
That kind of visual confusion is a bad thing. I understand the desire to move away from lines and boxes within boxes. But elegant lines should not blur functionality.
Also, how would this design look when trying to accomodate the many kinds of statuses that do not have banner-size-worthy photos? My guess is not very well.
Your last point is a huge problem with the Google+ Android app. I like the normal g+ website, but on the mobile app it assumes that every single post is just a pretty picture. That app is a usability nightmare because they failed to grasp how people actually use social networks (which is strange since the design on the normal website seems to understand this just fine).
So on a somewhat random note, I wonder when it will become true that this sort of thing will ensure the design never gets used. My reasoning here is based on watching the evolution of the entertainment industry, and industry lawyers.
So it used to be someone could say "Wow, wouldn't it be funny if Gillgan had a secret crush on Mary Anne and the skipper found out and used it against him?" and some writer for the show might say "Yeah, that would be funny, and maybe include a variation of that in the show."
Except there came a time where the show would air, that "someone" would show up, lawyers in tow, and demand compensation for using their idea. Which, after some pretty amazing litigation, the studios paid, and which resulted in pretty much any idea that was ever shared with a writer, or person associated with any show, was put on the list of 'things we can never do for fear of being sued.'
I'm surprised we haven't seen more of this already frankly.
I mean, Facebook isn't that revolutionary in terms of a site - there's a user with a login, there are comments, there are pictures. A demo site wouldn't need a scalable infrastructure to show off these ideas.
I'm just not so sure that some of the site controls would be possible in a browser. It's very tablet-y with controls that we are accustomed to in our phones and pads but not on a desktop. Also, it's very horizontal, which isn't typically very friendly on handhelds.
"nice" to look at, absolutely terrible to scan. I don't know where to begin and the 'noise levels' on every element is pretty much the same, making me feel very lost. Imagine a layman using this.
This is all very nice from a design point of view. But from a User Experience point of view, it's horrible. Each screen is totally different, there's absolutely no consistency between views.
I would like for things to go back to minimalist and simple. After all, the human brain can concentrate only on one thing at a time, so why show 20 different things on a page, when you could make the experience so much better with just what's essential for you in that very moment?
Facebook is a social network where you can view info about what your friends are doing. A good UX needs to do only that, and nothing more.
I cant understand how this design type is liked so much. I find the whole "flat" thing confusing and counter intuitive, and these days not exactly new. Given the title, I was hoping for something original.
I agree, flat design is in vogue (and is done badly most of the time). Where were all these designers with their beloved flat designs before Windows Phone came out? Rhetorical question, I know exactly where they were: designing and blogging about faux 3D iPhone-inspired UIs.
Notice how there are no ads in the layout.
The ads are often what make a layout tricky, as is providing a reliable degradation for low-end browsers and computers.
Great, another mosaic of shit I can't visually organize. I think it needs more stock photos as well.
Are we done with this kind of stuff already? Do people think that Facebook just haphazardly through together their current UI without doing extensive user testing?
I like the look, though some of it would need to be changed for functional purposes. My question is...why not implement such an interface via a plugin/extension and actually make it a reality for anyone that wants it? It's possible from a technical standpoint. There are already a few plugins that add themes etc. but not the this extent.
That would be an interesting business...create better/specialty interfaces for utility websites implemented by third parties via browser plugins. Maybe have a different and more convenient view and tools on Facebook depending on what you are trying to do on the site at the time (marketing view, developer view, time-killing view, etc).
Given the change-averse nature that I notice a in many of my facebook friends - I think a design change this radical would cause people to absolutely freak out.
I actually like this design though, it reminds me a lot of Microsoft's new aesthetic.
Aside from the photo gallery, which actually feels improved, I think everything else about this redesign went in totally the wrong direction. A massive sect of users is stuck in the "give me simple, stupid" mindset, and the platform popularity is really to blame. While it's a decent attempt at "beautifying" the interface, I think it's somehow more confusing.
Also, the design seems to be missing a way to shove hundreds of ad impressions into my eyeballs with each click -- a definite thumbs down in the facebook world.
Well, the newsfeed replacement doesn't do justice to the rest of the design. The newsfeed is terrible but I think the rest is pretty decent. I disagree that it's mostly aesthetics and no design. There are some good ideas in there. This are the main points for me:
a. The dark theme is a bit weird for Facebook. Recently there was this good article posted here[1] about background colors and motivations. It says white backgrounds ("low arousal" themes, according to the author) are for utilitarian websites and dark backgrounds for hedonistic motivated designs. Facebook is both, but I think our moms wouldn't use it with a dark theme.
b. The use of the screen real state is great. Facebook is really bad at this. This design looks like it could adapt to different screen sizes really well. It's almost the equivalent of Smashing Magazine for social. Really good, although it'd have to avoid horizontal scrolling on desktops which get weird very fast.
c. All interactive targets are quite big yet they look good enough for a website to be displayed on a desktop machine. That's not easy to achieve.
Overall I think this is more of a concept for a Win8 app, mostly based on the video in which it seems like the home page is a "live tiles" sort of thing. It could be made into a great website that uses the full screen with a bit of work. And that's a direction that most websites are lacking nowadays.
Major problem is responsive design, its not scalable for content heavy sites. Same code scaling for different screens, makes sense in theory but is nightmare in practice. I've been part of couple of projects where-in we learnt the hard way. Hence, you don't see any big site use responsive design in major way. Almost all sites (Facebook, Amazon, Flipkart) go with a different sites for mobile & desktop.
Also the use of white text on dark background is extremely hard to read. Hence you see pretty much every content-rich site uses white or light background with dark/grey text. An exception might be Myspace which went with dark background approach and failed miserably in engagement.
When using any site, we like consistency. By incorporating panels which open up from both left and right side, it provides an inconsistent feel while using the site. My usage might be completely different from yours. It is important to keep the overall layout consistent with content personalized based on users needs.
Personally, I would find the design much more functional if there were padding between individual "items" and each item were in its own clearly defined box. Also, if we could keep the widths/heights consistent my eyes would flow much more easily. Essentially this would be like the Facebook layout right now, except with perhaps 3-4 items per row instead of one.
I quite like the login screen. In the new "Twitter Bootstrap" era of web design I think this design is much more what users would expect/be used to. I just don't like two things: the login button, because that color is not Facebook-y; and the background, because it's obnoxious, basically says "look at all the cool people using Facebook, come join us!", and one thing I've always liked Facebook for not doing). Take away these two and it looks amazing (and functional).
All of this could happen without changing any aesthetically fundamental components.
I sure hope that the grid is religiously chronological. Otherwise, this design has the same fundamental flaw that the current timeline has - rearrangement of stories that is not easy to predict. The current timeline moves stories from left to right, into and out of folders making finding a story impossible. This design will do that to by rearranging the grid after every story comes through.
I'm not sure why designers would think this would appeal. This is like throwing a pile of papers on the desk. And rearranging them each time a new sheet is added.
The hype around this Facebook redesign is a testament to the fact that the user never knows what they want. He neglected revenue, typography, balance, rhythm and purpose, but that's obvious, I guess, I hope. Frozen within the current paradigm of Facebook, bickering with itself, it fails to push the argument in any direction. Good man for trying, but we have to think higher. Does Facebook even need to be a website or an app? If we're going to design so recklessly, why not commit to it? What if the solution was no Facebook?
Really love this design, it is eye candy, maybe not very user friendly for most. Reminds me a little of the new MySpace design. One thing I did notice about this design, you have not added any space for advertising space. We all know how much Facebook love to ply our feeds and right hand column full of sponsored ads these days. If this was seriously a option for Facebook (which i know is hypothetical) they would first look at how they can montenize from this design.
When a huge percentage of your supposed new design is covered with stock photos of pretty people, it makes it extremely hard to judge objectively. On the other hand, that is a great sales tactic.
I always felt it is kind of wrong for designers to use stock photos that represent best-case uses instead of typical-case photos. Best case photos show models smiling. The typical-case pictures are poorly taken photos or random gifs or someone not very photogenenic.
It's a very, very bad re-design.
- Grid is hard to track and keep an eye on. You will constantly lose information and get frustrated pretty quickly
- Long comments with 20 words per-line is bad for reading. You will have hard time jumping to the new line.
- Navigation is quite complex and will turn many new users down. It is good for experience users though.
- In reality you will not have such nice videos and photos. So it is quite artificial.
Ack! I wish designers would not always augment their designs with good looking people smiling, it only slants the emotional reaction in the designs favour when the real content in practice will rarely be as pretty/optimistic.
I think all designs should use unfavourable photos so as not to influence the overall design... e.g - http://i.qkme.me/3sfkf8.jpg :-)
Otherwise it's a vast improvement over the current FB
I don't know exact details about the content delivery process for loading various pages on Facebook, but this doesn't seem to follow the standard they've set at all. It mixes together parts that make up the various content blocks that load asynchronously.
It's really pretty and nice to look at, but it's one of those nightmare designs that didn't get much development thought.
Pretty from an artistic point of view, but the Win 8 design influences are clearly visible. The only place I've seen the Metro look really good and functional is on Windows Phone. The ascetic doesn't work on the desktop. It kind of works on tablet (Surface) but the massive UX problems with Win8 prevent a clear analysis of the style in that form factor.
I'm not quite sure what you mean here. I agree that there are a few small issues with this re-design, but I don't see how Windows 8's "massive UX problems" manifest themselves here. Are you saying that just because the buttons / "tiles" in this design are more chunky than things that you're used to?
The full use of the screen is quite nice when there is less is happening, such as the About page. And while the Dashboard/news page is clean, it could be rather overwhelming to look at and visually cluttered with poor pictures.
The one area I think he did fantastic in is of the displaying of individual pictures, events, finding friends, and company pages.
It looks like a Microsoft concept. It has nice features, don't get me wrong. But I wouldn't like it to be the new design because of lots of reasons. Mostly because I don't like tile-structure for timelined events. I find that very confusing and looks messy. (Plus looks bad when your window is small).
I'm not too familiar with Facebook's APIs, but could someone just go ahead and make a live version of Facebook like this? I know there are 3rd party iPad apps, what about a web version? (Not that I'd use this one - looks too crazy - but someone could come up with a different look I prefer.)
Thank you windows 8 for "inspiring" a whole generation of designers to rip you off.
In all seriousness, I've seen this same style concept for more then a few redesigns as of late. I fear for the design industry sometimes. I guess it's better then rounded corners, reflections and drop shadows though.
Imagine this design with poorly filtered instagram pictures and fishy facebook application ads all over the place, instead of brilliantly lighted professional photographs of beautiful women.
It's a great work of art from a design perspective, but quite unfeasible to turn into the real thing.
This is a very nice contribution of how to "prettify" facebook.
Facebook is and has been so ugly, and in many ways just complicated and not functional.
I also believe this may be flawed but I think facebook really has to do something about it's design.
Let's stress test it. He only shows a case scenario where the user has a 1600x1200 screen. The first example is the chaos itself. The rest seems eye candy and well done. I guess, with all the propaganda he's getting it will be contracted at Facebook.
All these kinds of redesigns assume we all have tons of high-res, color-balanced, artistically-balanced, beautiful photos of everything. Have you looked at people's Facebook albums lately? I think it might have a different effect with real data.
Yay, more linkbait from a small, unknown company that thinks they can do a tech giant's job better than them through the sheer power of design! This will look awesome on my Microsoft Surface. Can't wait for Facebook to take the hint.
Having white on black and black on white next to each other makes it hard to transition. Hiding nav mobile-style on a desktop is an extra click for no reason.
There's a lot of work into how it looks, but very little into how it will actually work.
Facebook is all about marketing, marketing yourself to the world. That's why i hate it, i prefer the tool like Yahoo Blog: very ugly design but it's useable and useful. Facebook's new design just makes the marketing faster.
Since I'm not as pretty as Samantha I suspect my page would look this good to glance at. Also with the grid view my eyes won't know what direction to travel in. So I fear that my page would be neither pretty nor functional.
There are good ideas, like the profile page (which right now serves no purpose on Facebook). Sadly, my Facebook is not a wall full of models, and this design seem to fail to account for anything that isn't a photo.
Amazing how high quality, HDR-blasted stock images distort reality. Replace those with more typical pictures of crappy iPhone pictures about things no one cares about, and I imagine it looks far less pretty.
Come on, you are all very brainy people - is really anybody here using Facebook? Ok, for making money out of the dumbheads that do not care about their data, but using it yourself??? Crazy idea!
It doesn't just look like Metro, to me. It looks like Encarta circa 2000. Not necessarily a bad thing at all. The aesthetics just really remind me of turn of the century Microsoft software.
It should just look like outlook 2007 with each "email" being a post that will open up when you click on it. Obviously a lot of other minor changes but that would be a great interface.
Designers make dream
Programmers fuck themselves to make the dream come true
To this design, I think it should be an application rather than a webpage.
uh, and what makes you think that? I work in the NY tech sector and would argue the opposite. The Behance network has one of the better tech teams in the city.
I'm going to agree with you re:the opposite. The Web Design Served category (supposedly the best of the best on the site) posts some seriously awful stuff (stock photos, overuse of textures, bad typography, poor UX practices). When I emailed them to ask who curated the site and if they were an actual web designer or just a random intern, I was told it was curated by the entire web design department. I stopped visiting Behance after that.
I also agree that it looks a lot nicer because of the high-end stock photos.
Edit: scrolling down further, there are some other UI refreshes that I do think improve the experience overall - the calendar and photo album views stood out to me. But I think it's important to use ugly people with weird names in your designs to gauge how it will actually look in production! The dark theme on pages, for example, looks very clean with Apple and Adobe as featured, but I imagine will look pretty dreary to stare at all day.