Kyle LeBoeuf

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, then you probably know about the new Facebook design changes that have been implemented over the past month. Just like the last time Facebook made serious changes to the interface and page design, there has been a massive user revolt. Some of the latest numbers show that 25% of those that have checked out the new design have switched back. Groups are springing up everywhere, some of whom have numbers that range in the millions.

As is appropriate for Web 2.0 companies nowadays, the CEO of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, addressed the member body of Facebook directly in a blog on Facebook’s blog site. In case anyone needs translation as to exactly what he means in this blog, it’s quite simple: the new profile/home page design is here to stay. It’s not going anywhere. Facebook will not be allowing people to switch back and forth between the designs and will not be maintaining the old design in any capacity.

Why?

Something I think people do not understand is that the site has been long in need of a refresh. Facebook hasn’t seen any huge changes in it’s design in the last 2 years, not since the introduction of the News Feed anyway. Since the introduction of the Facebook Platform and the ability to create custom applications to be used within the Facebook environment, some members’ profiles have become proliferated with so many applications that they dominate the page and push some of the original features of Facebook out of the way.

While most will argue that it doesn’t really matter; that the use and design of the profile should be under control of the user, and not Facebook, but I beg to differ.

Facebook was originally design as a place for communication between friends. When the primary forms of communication between users get pushed out the way (wall posting, messages, news feed) by custom, spammy applications, than it gets in the way of Facebook’s original purpose.

Also, one of the biggest criticisms of MySpace, is that the ability to allow people to customize their profile results in horribly coded pages that slow down and/or crash browsers. This carries over to Facebook, where some peoples’ profiles that have 50 applications take 5 minutes to load, where they occasionally slow down and/or crash by browser. It’s aggravating. The new design gives the communications features prevalence, where if the only thing I want to do is post on someone’s wall, I can just load their front page, and not worry about their 10 applications…with stuff like “Am I hot?” and “Pirates vs. Ninjas”.

I know it seems like I just went on a huge rant, but I think I’m pretty close to the money on how many users out there think. The vast majority of users like the new profile design and are looking forward to the ways that Facebook is going to tweak it.

A final message to everyone else: change happens. Get used to it. It’s part of the times we live in.

kyle [at] kyleleboeuf.com