To Change Or Not To Change? Facebook's Interface Controversy

Never change a winning formula.

Perhaps someone should have told Facebook that before the popular social networking website received a barrage of complains from some sections of the 100 million user-strong community following the full-launch of the new-look Facebook in September 2008. While the California firm believe that the new face-lift provides users with a more stream-lined, spam-resistant, and faster interface, the users think otherwise (Australian IT 2008).

Facebook's old interface (left) versus its new interface (right)
(Source: internetnews.com)

It is just a case of the users being thrown into unfamiliar waters. People are extremely knowledge-driven and text-driven when interpreting a text or a document (Schriver 1996). The users who had prior knowledge and experience with the old interface of Facebook are finding it difficult to adapt to the new layout. The user, when logging on to Facebook, already has a set of expectations which are being unfulfilled by the new design.

Why the Hate?

In my opinion though, the users' backlash and criticisms, ranging from forums and hate-groups, are slightly off-base. As proven in the past when Facebook users were first skeptical of the News Feed feature, it has now become a useful and valuable part of the social networking site (McCarthy 2008).

"We don't look at this through the lens of messing with something that works," said Facebook engineer Mark Slee who added that 'we (Facebook) are focusing on innovating and making the product better." Facebook designed the revamped interface based on user feedback and the emerging trend of user-generated videos and photo albums, so they obviously took an audience-centered approach towards the interface design change.

While some users may be moaning about the changes, it only represents a faction of the millions of users worldwide, and I personally feel that the new interface is much less cluttered and clean-looking. Walsh (2006) states that we navigate through websites with mutli-directional and non-linear pathways, and Facebook new and old is still a very interactive experience.

And if you still feel strongly about Facebook's new look, there's always MySpace.

References:

Australian IT 2008, Facebook makeover leaves some devotees fuming, viewed 9 June 2009, http://www.australianit.news.com.au/story/0,24897,24328928-15318,00.html.

McCarthy, C 2008, Facebook's getting a face-lift soon, CNet.com, viewed 9 June 2009, http://news.cnet.com/8301-13577_3-9879858-36.html.

Schriver, KA 1997, Dynamics in document design: creating texts for readers, Wiley Computer Pub., New York.

Walsh, M 2006, ‘”Textual shift”: examining the reading process with print, visual and multimodal texts’, Australian Journal of Language and Literacy, vol. 29, no. 1, pp. 24-37.