Evidently the New Facebook Sucks
About a month ago I explained why the new Facebook sucks. Well a few days ago Facebook decided to make the “new Facebook the only Facebook” and went ahead making a lot of people very, very angry. Based on the comments received on the original article, people seem to agree that there is no real usability improvement nor any additional ease of functionality gained from the new design.
What I find pretty funny is the search terms people use to find the article. On the right is a snippet from the site stats here showing 18 recent search engine results that lead to articles on this site. Out of the 18 search terms shown, 14 involve the words “new Facebook sucks.” I guess people are searching this exact phrase looking for people to agree with, or maybe they’re looking for reasons why people think this way. One thing I know for a fact is that no one in the Facebook office searched these terms to find out exactly what people are thinking.
Since the new design has gone fully live I’ve noticed a few other things that bother me. The first is the implementation of Applications. When the design switched over I noticed that there were two applications on my profile that I didn’t know I still had installed. So, I pulled up the Applications page to remove them. Before, there was a simple “remove” link to click. Now, the Applications page has numerous tabs with labels that don’t really make sense. Clicking “remove” on one tab doesn’t remove the application from the other tabs. In order to remove the application in question I had to click half a dozen times to get through all the options and actually remove the app. What a joke. This is probably the single worst effect of the new “design.”
Another thing, that I found more funny than anything, is the updated “People You May Know” box on the front page. I like that they’ve added a line to tell you why you might know the person, but what gets me is how broad the qualifier is. For example:
First of all, I don’t know anyone named Armando but the qualifier here is that we both live in Orlando. According to 2007 statistics, Orlando has over 277,000 people. Evidently because we both live here Armando and I should know each other. This new feature has potential, if Facebook can narrow the qualifier down to something like graduating class. However, based on Facebook’s lack of attention to input from the first go around, I’m not going to hold my breath.
All in all I’ve found myself visiting Facebook less over the last few days and opting more for the iPhone version, which now makes more sense then the web version. Are you visiting Facebook less? What is it that still irks you about the new design? Let me know in the comments.