You mean like AOL? I haven't seen your vitriol since the last big FB redesign that even my aunt complained about, which was like what, 5 years ago? I even posted something to FB in the last few years, once it was apparent that FB had not done further obvious redesigns, "remember back when we all hated FB and were going to never use it again?" Nobody replied or liked it.
FB is the Great Mall of the Internet, people don't really care if it sucks because it's just a place where people are. Many don't even have a concept of websites sucking.
The one thing you're forgetting is that this happens _every_ time there's a new website redesign for Facebook. Its actually very typical for this to happen in general. People despise change will complain about a new design even if the design is much better. In a couple of weeks no one will even notice or think much of it.
FWIW, from what i remember facebook's redesigns were never just a visual thing. they always added and pushed some functionality, made some things much harder to find, or quietly removed things entirely.
A similar thing happened when Last.fm did their huge redesign. The new website was all js now, and they quit all support on the forums, messaging, pretty much all the old ways of communication between users. And for me, that was awful, since i was a part of a music collective that communicated primarily on those forums. After that everybody dispersed.
So outrage at a redesign is not always unfounded or silly. Web companies tend to hide things in them.
Every minor redesign causes about a week of angry outrage that eventually goes away. I think Facebook has good empirical evidence that users will just deal and eventually get used to the new way of doing things.
Users complain every time, and they tend to always feel nostalgia for a year and a half ago. You can follow the Facebook redesigns from the various groups Facebook set up, and it tends to be that they miss the one that's two editions old.
Right now Facebook's in a position where they don't have to change in order to stay up top. Their design is pretty tight - tighter than any other site - and they've got enough of a monopoly that people don't feel the need to switch over. Their real competition comes from mobile sites like Loopt, and those are still a pretty slim set of the market right now.
Part of me thinks they're innovating just to appeal to product sales. Another part of me thinks that some of the people up top at Facebook are innovating because they really think they're breaking ground. I'd bet it's a mix of the two.
The new design is not objectively awful. Already I'd say about half the people I'm friends with are big fans of it. It's more condensed and more efficient. Don't wave about words like "objective" unless you're prepared to use them correctly.
This site's been in place for less than a week, and it was rolled out day by day. People's reactions are typical. Last time the backlast lasted for 2-3 weeks: we haven't seen a full 7 days yet.
By the way, it really is quite irritating trying to have a conversation with you, and having you state "obvious opinions" as fact ("Then you weren't around for the last redesign, which people hated.").
How else should I put it? I've used Facebook for 3 years, and every redesign sees the exact same 2-3 week pattern of people hating the redesign, people forming around groups to complain, and then the dislike subsiding.
The funny thing is that a lot of these websites get re-used. Some of these groups keep getting new users but are two years old.
So you know what? When you go about saying things like "objectively worse" and talking about a supposed level of vast complaint that doesn't actually exist, the first reaction I'll have is to wonder if you've been paying attention for the last three years. I'm sorry if that irritates you, but my initial reaction is to give you the benefit of the doubt. I don't want to assume that you're saying stuff when you should know better, so I assume instead that perhaps you're just new to Facebook.
Ah. Well sure, people complain about big changes, every time they happen, mostly because they don't like having to relearn things.
When FB introduced the newsfeed, people thought it was supremely creepy and they complained. Now they probably don't remember what it was like without it. When the timeline was introduced, it was the same thing. People complained about business accounts, apps, searching, photo tagging...every major change gets loads of complaints. And yet most people accept or even love those things within a couple months, and FB has continued to grow monumentally.
I see no reason to imagine this visual redesign or even the upcoming graph search will be any different.
I'm very surprised that people haven't noticed that Facebook really screwed up certain aspects to the redesign and instead keep trotting out the "users don't like change" excuse. There's "disruptive" and then there's "poor design decisions".
I have a pretty popular Facebook app. Since the redesign I've been flooded with complaint emails: "Bring back the old Facebook!!!!", "Why did you change it your !@#*&@#ing idiot?!", etc.
People always hate the redesigns. Then, three months later, they revolt against the NEW redesigns because they love the current one so much. Facebook's kind of abusive like that.
They also usually cycle between adding new functionality, and then stripping down the designs to its essentials. This is more of an Essentialist design, which I like; I've been waiting for a redesign since their last one added all the weird things.
>the previous design was quite popular and functional.
But there was just the same outrage over that design for a good month. I probably got 10 group invites to groups like "new facebook sucks!" and "don't visit facebook on (some date) to show them how much we hate new facebook."
I'm not sure if anyone took a poll, even a biased one, but I haven't noticed among my friends any more outrage over this redesign than the last one.
Depends on the changes. Facebook's UI revamps have usually been good ones (excluding their "hide the privacy settings" dark patterns), but a certain subset of users complain each time. I've got one friend who's been a member of each redesign's "bring back the old Facebook!" movement.
FB is the Great Mall of the Internet, people don't really care if it sucks because it's just a place where people are. Many don't even have a concept of websites sucking.
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