Facebook changes to address user complaints
Within hours of being published, thousands of people "liked" Christopher Cox's message to Facebook users.
(Credit: Jennifer Guevin/CNET)Facebook users haven't exactly been reticent about their dislike for Facebook's recent redesign. And Facebook staff want you to know they're listening.
Facebook has been deluged with feedback on its new layout, much of it negative but constructive, according to a blog posted Tuesday by Product Director Christopher Cox. Hundreds of thousands of people gave the redesign a thumbs-down in a user poll. And groups like "MEMBERS WANT THE OLD FACEBOOK BACK!" have formed to voice their discontent.
While the social network isn't reverting back to the old page design, they are making a handful of changes to appease some of the outraged masses, according to Cox, who has also worked as director of human resources and software engineer at the company.
Some of the changes already in the works include:
- Live updating: Users will have the ability to turn on auto updating so they don't have to refresh the page to see what's new.
- Photo tags: Facebook will add photos tagged with a person's friends to her stream.
- Applications: Users will have the ability to cut down on the application-related content that's showing up in streams.
- Highlights: This section in the right-hand column will update more frequently and show more content so it'll be more like the old News Feed.
- Requests: Friend requests and event invites will be moved to the top of the right-hand column so they're more prominent.
- Friends lists: Users will be able to create a new list of friends with which to filter their streams.
From the post: "Over time, we'll continue to give you more control over what's in your main stream and how you consume it. We have the eventual goal of building filters that summarize this activity so you can see a more condensed view of what's been going on. We're also thinking about ways of filtering out some of the Wall posts and content directed to specific people to focus more on posts shared with everyone."
No specific timeframe was mentioned for most of the updates, though they did say the photo tag update would happen "in the coming weeks."
To be sure, it can't be easy to redesign a site with 175 million users. For one thing, different people use the site very differently, so one man's feature is another's peeve. Many of Facebook's users are online and interacting with the site for hours each day and no doubt have a personal connection to what goes on there. And as Cox points out in his post, sometimes change is just hard to take.
Cox, the brave soul that he is, invited yet more feedback from users, directing people to the tour of the redesign where people can leave their comments.
Jennifer Guevin is assistant managing editor of CNET News. She focuses on science and green tech. But she also makes the occasional contribution to CNET's kitchen gadgets blog or writes about the latest Web distraction. Once a week, she takes the mic as host of CNET's Daily News Podcast. E-mail Jennifer. 
-- this is already and has long been a feature.
# Photo tags: Facebook will add photos tagged with a person's friends to her stream.
-- this just adds more ^&*%*% to clutter up the stream!
These changes do not address any of the more sane complaints that have been posted:
-- the cool little "see more/see less" stories option.
-- the useless left-nav filters that do not include "Status" and often include applications that you have not added
-- The style change displaying status updates, wall posts and Link comments as visually the same.
-- They've removed the ability to "see more/see less" from people in general. You either have to axe them or suffer
-- the non user-friendly publisher.
New behavior: Friend posts 17 pictures in an album. All seventeen pictures display in the news feed, large thumbnails in batches of 3. Over an inch deep for each batch. Plus, comments made on the photo album itself display with each batch of three. The SAME three comments.
There is a large amount of people complaining simply because they do not like change. Many of these people cannot articulate what they don't like. But there *are* valid complaints and most of what you've reported above does not address them.
And if I did use both Twitter and Facebook, now I'd have a lot less reason to use both and a lot more reason to just stick with Twitter, which now looks more like the original that Facebook is trying unsuccessfully to copy.
I agree, I don't like Twitter, since I can basically do the same thing with facebook, AND see other things, like photos, and if I feel like it do quizzes, surveys, or whatever. What they should do is let you easily click on and off the options you want for the main page. Like maybe some people only want to see status updates. But I like seeing more info like new photos, etc, and if my friends took quizzes, and likenesses and so on, and don't want to have to click on a bunch of crap to get to what I want. I usually only check facebook once a day or every other day, but I do think that I do less on the site now since they only things I see easily when I log on are status updates.
People just moan and groan.
At least Facebook is smart enough to listen and make some adjustments.
We need the option to filter out certain types of content (say, gifts) without filtering out the PERSON. I don't need to see 20 separate listings that my friend sent a peanut butter sandwich to 20 of his friends... especially if I don't even know any of those 20 friends.
Failing that, I want the ability to group all that info into ONE EVENT. "Joe Schmo sent a peanut butter sandwich to Jack Sprat, John Doe, Jane Doe..." etc.
Otherwise, my whole front page gets inundated by peanut butter sandwich gifts. It makes it hard to find the content I actually want to see.
"Applications: Users will have the ability to cut down on the application-related content that's showing up in streams."
I guess the problem facebook is up against since opening out its membership is that it has to appeal to all ages - it is not unknown to find 3 generations of one family on facebook now - I do find the new facebook confusing in places but then I didnt like the old one much either
Isn't this feature already implemented in the new layout? The first thing I did when i saw the new layout was set up friends lists specifically so i could filter the news feed.
I'd really like to see live updates implemented ASAP.
I'd also like to see a way to change which apps show up on the app stream filter list.
I'm pretty happy with the new layout. I love how I can filter the news feed according to friends lists!
Also, when you're on your own profile, the little box where you update your status.....it looks as if it's for writing on your wall instead of status updating cause of what it says under the box. That confused me at first o.o
And having to see all those pictures everyone puts up kind of got annoying after a while xD
Seem more/See Less would fix a lot of problems. This "change" doesn't make a squat bit of difference. And it's gonna be great to see every single tagged photo that's posted. I may have to ask all my friends/family to cut back on posting photos.
*** 1: The new design didn't add significant functionality.
1a- The old design already had live updates (actually live though), and filtering by friend group, status, photos, etc.
1b- The only "new" functionality was to filter by 3rd party applications - most of which are rubbish.
1c- Indeed, the old functionality of being able to dial up or down what and who you found interesting - it's gone.
*** 2: The new design is "dumb", rather than intelligent.
2a- The old "social graph" algorithm worked for me. It digested hundreds of friends and thousands of "data" into a digestible, interesting, useful home page.
2b- The new stream is always the last hour, and if I didn't block every 3rd party app I find, it would probably be littered with quizzed and sheep throwing. Further, since I check Facebook late at the end of the day, my home stream is almost exclusively west coast people, instead of my local friends who are most interesting to me.
2c- Twitter is about the "stream", it was founded as a micro-blog. Facebook is NOT about the stream - it was founded as, and ought to be, an intelligent address book that functions like a yearbook, collecting memories with photos, and your friends scribbled notes on the inside "walls" of the book.
MOST IMPORTANT TO ME:
*** 3: The new design reverts Facebook back to 2005.
3a- Profile changes (groups joined, relationship status, interest changes) are left completely unpublished, and thus we're left having to go profile to profile, and trying to remember what was and was not there, in order to find out some of the most interesting aspects of our friends (for me, namely, their relationship statuses - completely and totally obscure now).
3b- The new highlights section has SOME group joins, and you can even hack the URL to filter by groups, but neither are nearly as sufficient as the old Home Feed. And of course, it's cramped, minimal in number, and absolutely not customizable, so I don't count it.
***
Just one more thought: I do agree that there is some truth in the idea that companies who are bold and not afraid to go against their customers from time to time do end up pioneering some good ideas, however here's how this is different:
This isn't Ford or Apple, Facebook is not selling a product, it's dealing in the exchange of *our* contributions, *our* data. Facebook doesn't just make money from us - Facebook is ABOUT us.
If Facebook wants to abandon what we're here for and try and be some player in this new microblogging Twitter market, then it should spin off another site, or at very least, retain the important address book/ yearbook functionality in a meaningful way rather than attempt to Steve Jobs'ianly force its will on us by telling us "You don't really want to connect with old friends... you want to discover new ones," - because that's wrong.
Facebook became popular because it was simpler than the cluttered MySpace. By adding features left right and center they are becoming the same kind of annoying site that we were escaping in the first place.
Its also a good way giving out all your news without having to bore people at length - they can read just the bits they want to know about and the same applies in reverse. Facebook is a useful addition to life, it shouldnt of course replace life
Change doesn't always come about because we agree as a majority that something needs to change. A significant portion of the time change will occur when "a small but vocal portion of followers" shouts often enough and loud enough to attract attention. It is the mentality that the louder you shout the more correct you are.
Somewhere along the line with the whole political correctness movement we lost sight of the option we had to just as frequently and loudly tell that "small but vocal" group to ****.
Again, I'm not really thinking about FB, which is essentially irrelevant in the happiness and prosperity of peoples lives. I was thinking more about the extreme right nut jobs and how they rose to power over the past 8 years and how we, the majority, let them.
I don't really care about the layout of FB. It does what I need and seems to work well enough for what I pay for it every month. The point is; why is a small but vocal group allowed to have any power at all?
How was Bush/Cheney and company allowed to screw the country so bad and we didn't stand up and say ****! We sat passively by as soldiers died and our wealth disappeared. We watched "Reality TV" as the number of people without medical care grew to 1 in 5. 20% of our population doesn't have medical coverage and we sat quietly by as "a small but vocal portion of followers" told us that nationalized health care was a bad idea. It didn?t matter that the U.S. is the only major country without nationalized health care. That small group shouted often and loudly and people followed.
The re-design of FB is a non-issue, but it can be used as a metaphor for a passive country.
What happened to this country?
My pet peeve is the loss of the birthday calendar for my friends. I find it's important to drop by my friends page and wish them a happy birthday but I can't seem to find that information all in one place and I certainly don't have the time to visit each of my frinds homepage to write their birthday down.
I hope they fix this for me : )
I agree with what's been said about not being able to make certain people or story types preferential. I also actually miss the old newsfeed (which I am guilty of hating at its onset) that showed profile updates that informed me of changes in friends' interests, tastes, or relationship statuses. My old Facebook allowed me to say I wanted to see more stories about my best friends than about people I haven't talked to since high school. Now I either have to see everything everyone does with every idiotic application, or block a person entirely. I don't want to do either - the old way was far superior.
- by hawkeyeaz1 March 25, 2009 1:20 PM PDT
- Facebook should just create a layout that the user can alter to their liking, kind of like iGoogle's, where you can add/remove or move things around. Honestly, that would help out a lot.
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