New Facebook VS Old Facebook

Facebook have changed their layout for 3 times since they first launched. An article from Australian IT (2008) entitled 'Facebook Makeover Leaves Some Devotees Fuming' shows the disappointment and frustration of millions of facebook users when a new layout was introduced. They even have video on protesting the new facebook.



Sometime it is a mess when everybody is flared up when the new design of a website does not match with their expectation. So, is change a good or bad thing for websites?

(source: facebook.com)

Nielsen (2008) has stated that if a website is not easily to be used, internet users will most probably leave the website. Facebook has changed into a new interface according to the feedback of internet users but it failed to meet the reading habits of internet users in various ways.

Taking a look at the new interface of Facebook, the word “complicated” will come into mind as you can see there are too much of navigation bars and section to explore. People easily get confused and lost their way in the social networking website as they have to make a few attempts and get used to the new interface of the website all over again. The over flooding applications in website is also something document designer should avoid when it obstructs users to scan for the information they wanted (Reep 2006).

Document designers should keep in mind that the main principle for designing web pages is to provide a comfortable layout for readers to read on screen with minimum of eye movement (Parker 2003).

Although there are a lot of complaints of facebook new layout but in fact there are still a lot of people using it. As the statistic below shows that the user of facebook is actually increasing.

(source: compete.com)

So, is the ever popular facebook has changed the trend of website publication as it is still highly in demand even with its complex web design?

References:

Australianit.news.com.au 2008, Facebook makeover leaves some devotees fuming, media section, viewed 13 June 2009, http://www.australianit.news.com.au/story/0,24897,24328928-15318,00.html

Nielsen, J 2008, Writing for the Web, viewed 13 June 2009, http://www.useit.com/alertbox/9703b.html

Parker, RC 2003, ‘Chapter 14’, in Looking Good in Print, 5th edition, Scootsdale, Arizona.

Reep, DC 2006, 'Chapter 4: Principles of document design', in Technical writing, 6th edn, Pearson Education, Inc., New York, pp. 173 - 190.