Facebook have just pulled the trigger on their latest UI refresh. Their continued persistence on marching forward wether users want or demand it is relentless. The changes include an change to the News Feed, It now distinguishes between the most recent stories and the Top Stories, depending on how long its been since your last login.
The dedicated update box is now gone, replaced with a set of streamlined update options – ‘Update Status, Add Photo and Ask Question. The Add Photo option seems miss-named as the options provided once you click it, also include video. Gone is the separate ‘Add Link’ option, instead this is just done by pasting the link in the status update.
Chat on the right is now split into two sections, the top being status updates from friends currently online, making it easier to engage with those are, or have recently been online. There’s no refreshing here, the top section is live and flows like a river with updates.
Photos have also been updated, with a gallery of photos now displaying in a tiled design.
The timing of the release is interesting, being a couple of days before the F8 developer conference on Friday. If they felt the need to push this change out prior to the conference, that only gives weight to the rumoured ‘big changes’ that are coming. Hold on tight people, could be a big FB week.
Judging from early reaction online people aren’t happy, not surprising, change is hard and with 750 Million users, you can’t please everyone. The change is jarring initially, but seriously isn’t that different, just live with it for a while people. At the end of the day you don’t have a choice of the old design. Live with it.
