Facebook's Users Don't Like Change
When Facebook updated its users' homepages last week, we already wondered how users would react to these changes. After all, when Facebook introduced the news feed in 2006, its users were anything but happy about this change. Now, a new application is quickly spreading on Facebook that allows users to vote on the new design. This application is not endorsed by Facebook, but the current vote totals are quite interesting: 43,000 users liked the new layout, while almost 700,000 users said that they did not like it.
One of the most common complaints we have seen in the comments on both the official announcements from Facebook, as well as in the comments on the voting application, is that it looks too much like Twitter (and, in an apparent act of youthful rebellion, some Facebook users are now signing up for Twitter as a protest), though some users are also clearly simply unhappy with the change in general, and especially with the new system of filtering the real-time stream.
Here are some recent examples:
- Lisa: If i wanted updates on everyones status while it was happening, I would join Twitter.
- Judy: It stinks. Why mess with something if it's already working?
- Cassy: The new facebook is tooooo confusing and you cant find anything~!!! are you going to change it back???
- Arie: Everytime I see the new layout a part of me dies on the inside.
We also created a word cloud with keywords from the most recent comments on the voting application, which clearly demonstrates the current sentiment about the real-time homepages among Facebook users.
When Facebook announced the change, it also added notifications about the impending update to the homepages on every user's profile. Still, a large number of users were obviously taken by surprise when their beloved Facebook pages suddenly changed.
Users don't like change, and as a product becomes more popular, users will grow ever more resistant to change. During the last major controversy around Facebook, when Facebook changed its Terms of Service, the company argued that it was quite aware that its users feel a sense of ownership over Facebook, so it will be interesting to see how Facebook will react to the current outcry.
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I really hate the new layout as well, its really unorganized, especially the frontpage. Well I stopped using Facebook a lot more after the changes. Lets hope they make a function that allow to choose layout.
Why do they keep messing with a good thing. Change is always the answer. I don't think they need to keep changing to keep up with other sites. Its getting confusing
The 42,000 for the new look must be twitter users. I quite like it.
Love it or hate it, FB is so ingrained in us that it doesn't matter what changes they make. They always go through this phase where they come out with a new design and then eventually everyone gets used to it. Then they wait for the next design to complain about. I guess no one like's change which will only lead to boring products.
This "unauthorized" Facebook polling application should be a prototype of NEW INTERNET PEOPLE GOVERNMENT, voting polling, instant elections. .... everyday, eligible public should be able to cast, assign approval numbers /0-10/ to President, Congress, single issues ... sure, the other real issues might arise - ie, if Congress wants to go to war, can an instant certified majority citizen vote overrule them? ... it would be the Direct Democracy vs Representative Republic .. DD vs RR
It's such a shame people can't see beyond the fact that something they were used to has changed - it's called progression!
This speaks volumes about the Facebook user base!
The results aren't that surprising because only people who hate the new layout will bother with this application... the rest of us will simply ignore it.
Personally, I love the new Facebook layout.
However, I was a Twitter user long before Facebook.
I think a lot of people are MySpace converts who are familiar with a massive cluster-f*ck of information on their homepages.
That, coupled with a built in distrust of anything new for most Joes, you get a lot of people protesting.
Didn't this same thing happen with eBay when they changed their format as well?
It's great to see how protective everyone is of their Facebook...but annoying to see how a minority creates such an uproar for every little change. That poll pretty much amounts to 0.4% of the total Facebook population. Let the revolution begin!
I like the new layout. I've actually commented more since the change than I normally do. The only thing I would say is make the default font a little smaller to make it seem less overwhelming for some people.
Another funny thing. I think this will actually promote Twitter more. A few of us have been joking around about the new Twitter-like Facebook which always brings someone who ends up asking what Twitter is.
New Coke, anyone? Anyone want to bet that users will be given the choice of New Facebook and Facebook Classic? These guys ain't dumb.
--Ax
What you don't mention in the reasons of dislike is that various core facebook info are missing from the current News Feed: new friendships (a social network without friendship info!), photo comments, relationship status, groups/pages joining, application installs! All those are gone...
I like the layout BUT I don't like the disappearing of information... I would like a Live Feed option...
Even though the poll is only 0.5% of facebook users, one has to take into account on how the "thumbs down" side grows exponentially. The average jump is 100 votes every 20 seconds compared with about a 10 vote jump for "thumbs up" in the same amount of time.
I've been a facebook user since 2004 when I was in college (which was its original market) keeping up with my friends while I was studying abroad. I was against social networking but gave facebook a go because of its minimal, no-frills "multi-media email" approach to keeping in touch.
Yes, users complain about every facebook change but I don't think it's because of a resistance to "progression". I think it's because it seems facebook strays further away from its original premise. For me, my grievance comes from the design. It's quite cluttered with excessive negative space, inconsistently framed icons and unnecessarily enlarged fonts. The overall effect is overwhelming and generally lacking in layout sophistication.
facebook purity is a cool greasemonkey script that can help clean out the spam (from quizes and silly apps) from your facebook homepage http://tinyurl.com/fbpurity
I prefer the old layout because it was better organized and more concise.
Let's say that Joe asked 10 people to join the cause "fight hunger". Under the old layout, you'd get one line saying that Joe asked Pete, Sally & 8 others to join that cause. Now, it creates 10 separate, nearly identical entries listing each individual. I prefer the old way.
I would also prefer to keep the celebrities I follow separate from my real life friends. Now, they're mixed in with them.
I don't care how many of my friends are using what apps.
There doesn't seem to be any rhyme or reason to what gets highlighted.
In short, I liked the old layout because it provided a clean, orderly, efficient tool for communicating with my friends. Now, it's moved away from that & toward the "clusterf*ck" of info on one page approach.
I still plan to continue using Facebook for the time being. I don't expect that they'll return to the old format. But, I hope that they'll give us some options as to how we'd like information presented.
But that's the thing... facebook is not twitter but tries to be it. I join and say that the new Homepage is confusing. Users were used to handle the site in a certain way and it worked. Why changing?
I don't think the redesign has much to do with competing with Twitter or anyone else for that matter...
Its a cost-cutting device.
They cut the fat out of the interface, scaled back a lot of features. The old feed had a super complicated algorithm and mixer-like control panel to tweak it.
So to cut out all these extra features they just said F-it! and decided to make it chronological.
Thats my theory. I friggin hate the new version. There was a delicate balance they just lost and will never get back
per my comment above, just thinking some more about it...
More proof its just to cut costs - the merger of the Pages with normal profiles. Its now one interface front and back.
As a page-owner and profile-owner I really feel slighted that my business's page now looks like a regular joe. It doesn't make sense to make them the same.
The two used to be so different, and now they're pretty close to identical - evidence they're trying to kill off the two different teams they have working on them and merge em.
There are more layoffs coming at FB I can feel it
A lot of people are accusing those of us who don't like the new facebook of having a knee jerk reaction. While that may be the case for some people, it's not for my crowd. Most of us are big partiers. Many of us are in IT & we have a pretty good idea of what constitutes good web design. We are not "stuck in our ways" And, practically all of us consider this a step in the wrong direction.
We liked Facebook because it was clean, concise and pretty well organized. It provided a good place for adults to communicate. It's now heading away from that. We consider that a bad thing.
For those of you who think that the backlash is a knee jerk reaction, please consider that the word "change" is value-neutral. If you're in a happy relationship & your guy/girl ditches you without warning, that's a change. Should we consider your distraught mental state an irrational reaction to change? Should we remind you that change is always good? Or, should we take into account the fact that you had something you liked and it's now gone & sympathize a little?
I don't feel that it simply boils down to hating change. I enjoy the news feed on FB. What I don't like now is that I feel that I have to dig into my friends' profiles to see groups they join, notes they write, etc. I don't feel I'm getting the content I once did. FB is about a lot more than simply status updates.
@Miles:
Facebook's redesign in late 2008 didn't meet with this level of outcry. The issue with the latest redesign is that it's effectively straitjacketed their audience: it removes the user's ability to control the content that they see in their homepage, customize the layout of stuff on their profile, separate fan content from friend content, and a whole lot of other stuff that the last redesign actually enabled.
In short, it ain't progress, it's regress.
Boo hoo... once all of you who do not like the new layout will graduate from high school you will realize that in the real world, things change. Especially today when technology is evolving at such a rapid pace, if you do not adapt you will be left behind. Facebook is looking towards the future and are preparing for size upgrades that will benefit you, the end user.
OK, this is probably the 4th or 5th article I've read claiming that "users all hate change" or "this is just a few people with too much time on their hands". That alone makes me suspicious.
It's true: previous Facebook changes were met with ridiculously poignant complaints, and a few months later no one cared (at least not enough to stop using it). AND you could definitely argue that by taking the heat on Beacon, FB desensitized users to behavioral tracking (as long as it's done "better" than Beacon).
The difference this time: I have no idea what FB as a business is trying to accomplish with this change.
News Feed: brilliant. Made the product addictive.
Beacon: poorly executed but a great idea to tie together behavior on other sites, since social suggestion is a hugely powerful marketer.
News/Live Feed: reclaimed control from the applications, put Facebook-as-a-platform more front and center.
I don't see any benefit (for Facebook) in this new design, and as a user, the access to information used to be a winning formula; now it's a mess. I equated Facebook's previous "news story" formula as sort of like Google - I didn't know how it worked, but it worked. This is akin to Google abruptly changing search to show all results alphabetically - making it near-impossible to find the useful/interesting stuff.
I don't think the results of the poll are that interesting. They simply illustrate that people are generally resistant to change. Users aren't interested in re-learning how to use Facebook.
But I think it's foolish to believe that change won't or shouldn't come to any website. It's the internet after all.
As users slowly get used to the new format, however, I think most will see it's advantages and stop complaining...until the next revamp that is
Facebook is free. New-ish in the scheme of things.
It doesn't kill baby seals, or cut down trees, or attack foreign nations. It doesn't even promise to love you forever and then break your heart. Adaptation makes you shiny.
http://storybookgirl.blogspot.com/2009/03/adaptation-makes-you-shiny.html
As someone mentioned in an earlier comment, it isnt about complaining for the sake of complaining. The essence of facebook as a 'social networking' site is no longer there. I wanna see who my friends have become friends with, as I may know them. i wanna know which groups my friends have joined, without having to click groups icon and scroll thru every single thing. I wanna see comments made about photos. I also want to see events my friends will be attending without having to click 'Events' and then have to scroll through every single event, listed day by day!!! As someone who has a very active social life, all the abovementioned things were very important to me. And when you have a large number of friends, it is simply impossible to go to individual people's pages just to see what's been happening; i want it all in my news feed...just like live feed used to do. Status upates, whilst interesting, are not that important to me. It now also means that certain friends who don't do update their status or mess around with apps/quizzes never get featured on your home pge. Absolute PAH!
Any change that improves functionality is welcome and this latest one does the opposite. I want to see, in a relatively short time, what my friends and family are doing. I don't want to be spammed with irrelevant information.
The profile page is filled with huge thumbnails of my profile photo', why? They have removed the ability to minimise items to one line, which just adds insult to injury...why?
I resisted the whole Facebook thing up until one year ago and would have left if the 'new' facebook had not been introduced. I'm not against change when it enhances the user experience and I can honestly say if this had come in then I would have been away.
The bottom line is that the users ARE Facebook and if it fails to provide the functionality the users want something else will. The Internet, like nature, abhors a vacuum.
The new Facebook homepage is cool, but still the best homepage I've seen so far is sthrt.com. I would give that a try.
yup, me too. I really don't like it with the new design