One of the advantages of being sick, and thus forcing yourself to take a break from the millions of projects you are currently working on, is you finally get to write an entry in your blog without feeling enormously guilty!
Changing the UI of any site with a significant user base is always a big gamble, regardless of how much statistical analysis and user-centered data you have. However, larger social networking sites that many users have integrated into their daily online activities have unique and very specific challenges to overcome. Unlike a site that users visit on an intermittent basis or for a very defined and specific purpose, these platforms facilitate communication between many different kinds of people exchanging extreme levels of personal data. The usual gamble is multiplied by being forced to examine an increasingly diverse user base that is interacting with the site in different ways, for different purposes and with different goals in participation. This is true of any popular site with lots of content, but for a social networking platform there are often multiple points of entry, numerous types of tasks that users engage in many times a day and tons of information ranked at different levels of significance depending on numerous factors, from the specific patterns exhibited by a user’s core ‘friend group’ within the site to their own personal time commitment in being a user.
A change in UI for any popular site is not going to ever satisfy every user all of the time. However, an interesting trend appears to have begun in the way these kinds of sites have attempted to deal with the obvious need to release changes to their UI without confusing and angering loyal users. This approach focuses more on a healthy combination between usability and the interesting implementation of new technologies and functionality. The most important aspect of this switch in thinking about UI design is the desire to give users time to adjust to the switch by providing them with a choice. As an example, one of the largest sites to change its UI by this method in recent months was MySpace. Long regarded as the pinnacle of how not to design for the web, from information architecture mistakes to pure ugliness, it was an absolute necessity to make changes in their UI to accommodate new features sets due to launch to compete with the increasingly successful implementation of new features on Facebook. The big surprise in the UI was not that it actually made the site any more usable, I am not entirely sure how that is possible, but that MySpace wisely allowed its user base to decide whether to implement it or not. Although it is probably quite widely used now, for months after its launch many users refused to switch. Perhaps driven by force of habit or the lack of desire to figure out the placement of needed features, many users simply found no need to change their behavior and no time to learn the new configuration. It was only when the site launched the ability to customize a home page design that users begin to switch over in greater numbers, most likely fueled by friends who were early adopters. Given the nature of the site and what its users do there, this makes a lot of sense. But what is more interesting then the patterns of feature adoption of the MySpace user, is the fact that their new approach to a UI launch worked. Rather than discouraging users to switch over in great numbers, something that one might expect in giving users a choice between old and familiar and new and scary, it seemed to provide the ultimate buffer between habit and the necessity of change.
Given the amount of cross platform copycat behavior that has become common place between many of these social software competitors, it shouldn’t have been surprising that Facebook would copy this approach when they decided to launch their new UI recently. The only reason why it raised my eyebrow was that Facebook has become rather well known for launching numerous new feature sets with little notification to or consultation with their user base. It is true that the recent tremendous success of the site has actually been largely dependent on their elaborate risk tasking, but we all remember the “mini feed, news feed” situation where users revolted at functionality change quite severely. The problem was not simply that users felt their privacy had been violated by the publication of their activities to their friends, but more importantly that they had not been properly consulted or informed regarding the new functionality and what affect it would have on their information. The fact that the developers ended up being right, and that this functionality became an incredibly important feature for the new direction of the platform, did not take away from the significance of the user back lash. This was direct evidence that people do not inherently like change, particularly when that change involves user trust. Perhaps it was thanks to this revolt that Facebook decided to play it safe this time around. More likely, they simply noticed a really good idea.
The new UI is, as promised, much more about functionality then actual new design choices. Ironically, it puts incredible emphasis on the once hated mini feed in a user’s profile, integrating it within the user’s wall and copying the recently popular “friend feed” by allowing users to comment on updates. In fact, the entire “first tab” of the new profile reads like a “lifestream”. Facebook says it implemented this strategy because it noticed that users were actually the most interested in recent updates. While this may be true for many users, the big issue is that this very specific view into one’s “life” on Facebook cannot be changed, a fact that seems to be in direct conflict with the old Facebook where configuration of one’s profile through drag and drop was incredibly intuitive.
In continuing with this new configuration strategy, the left hand sidebar has remained active for applications, albeit ones that seem to have been chosen at random, and additional tabs have been added for info, photos and boxes, with the additional ability to add other tabs as needed. The tabs definitely clean up the profile page, in danger of becoming as messy as a user-designed MySpace profile, and the ability to add as many as you want to accentuate applications you care about is quite nice. However, when attempting to add additional tabs I noticed that some applications were missing from the list of possible tabs I could add. Why can’t I add a tab for the groups I am in for example? Or pages? Perhaps these are simply bugs that will be addressed, but it was quite annoying because it hid many things from view completely and seemed to put emphasis on one’s I didn’t particularly care about.
Not having the time to investigate much further, I have actually switched back to the old Facebook temporarily. I am not sure that I will leave it that way in the long run, but my decision in doing so makes me realize how important their decision to keep both possibilities active was, and how important this decision should be for many sites to take note of before implementing a new UI. It is not necessarily the way to go in every case; it is true that users do not always know what they want until you give it to them. But I still believe that form should follow function (a little something I learned in photo school) and that the only way to learn about what form the function of something social should take is to ask those who use it.
