One of my go-to examples is http://www.gov.uk. Obviously a very different site to Facebook, but the way it combines the content from hundreds of individual sites while still making it easy to navigate is impressive.
To be fair, Facebook's UX is always going to be a bit of a nightmare just due to the sheer volume of disparate features stuffed in - the 'iTunes effect' as I've just called it - so the move to focused apps for specific features is probably a good thing.
To be not so fair, I get the suspicion that the UX is left deliberately confusing in places, especially the constant rearranging of privacy settings, to get people to share more than they would otherwise.
I'm a UX designer and Facebook baffles me. Maybe I'm a bit too old or I don't use it enough, but I find it so unintuitive - there's all kinds of options, corners and dead ends where things may or may not be hidden. And then once I've found something, getting back there again is almost impossible.
It just doesn't lend itself to a consistent mental model.
Interesting. I had not thought about that aspect before. When I think of it, Facebook’s UI is probably a lot more easy to use for most people. And even then some still struggle :)
Intentional or not, one outcome on sites that are relentlessly A/B tested is that the resulting UI design lets users know that content they want is there, they just need to click and scroll a bit more to find it.
Having left FB years ago, I now watch people "navigate" their site/apps with disbelief.
The right-hand bar feels very "app" like. I wonder if their intention is to transition, through many iterations, Facebook into more of an "app-like" design and less of a "website"?
This is all very nice from a design point of view. But from a User Experience point of view, it's horrible. Each screen is totally different, there's absolutely no consistency between views.
I would like for things to go back to minimalist and simple. After all, the human brain can concentrate only on one thing at a time, so why show 20 different things on a page, when you could make the experience so much better with just what's essential for you in that very moment?
Facebook is a social network where you can view info about what your friends are doing. A good UX needs to do only that, and nothing more.
So I see we get a new facebook design (yes, yes I know - but it is handy for my ex-Uni friends).
It worries me that Facebook initially led the way in interface design and now have done this? Is it just me or is this an example of poor UI design. I've been studying/reading on this subject recently and it strikes me their failing on some crucial aspects.
Thoughts (purely the homepage here):
- somehow they have managed to compress the center part of the page. Every item seems twice as tall now
- The notifications on the left have been removed and replaced with ads and a "compressed" stream of media (which is really hard to read/skim/view).
- You have to use buttons now to filter the content, not a bad idea but some things now dont seem to appear by default - so you have to click = not easy.
Every tweak strikes me as adding more clicks and more complexity.
Any more thoughts from a technical viewpoint (this is HN :)). Am I being too picky & thinking into the desing too deply? Or am in on the right track: have they messed things up?
Yeah, I hear people (usually on Twitter, often right after proudly mentioning how rarely they use Facebook) commenting negatively about Facebook's UI, but it's pretty rare that I see somebody point to a site that does the same things and does it better.
Those aren't good interface ideas those are features that alot of trial and error and research went into.
Think of it like a new drug. Theres alot of R&D poured into these things. not on the same regulatory or financial scale but work goes into that. Facebook blocks the growth of these by copying wholesale and throwing it at its database of users so they never have to leave their ecosystem.
Look at what instagram has become from photosharing app to an everything platform that has a horrible UX.
I made a comment the other day about this being facebook's UX failure. This is a pretty damning illustration. How could they burden their users with something like this?
To be fair, Facebook's UX is always going to be a bit of a nightmare just due to the sheer volume of disparate features stuffed in - the 'iTunes effect' as I've just called it - so the move to focused apps for specific features is probably a good thing.
To be not so fair, I get the suspicion that the UX is left deliberately confusing in places, especially the constant rearranging of privacy settings, to get people to share more than they would otherwise.
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