Facebook Needs a Facelift

The question nowadays is what social networking service do you use? Facebook? Twitter? MySpace? LinkedIn? Maybe even a dating service or two! Whichever one (or more) you socialize with (or through), there are issues in the design or function that are bound to spring to mind. My platform of choice is Facebook, and trust me there are plenty of issues I have with it's layout.

Of course each issue I have is usually a double-edged sword. Sure, I might not like how I have to navigate to certain information, but it is definitely convenient to have access to that information at all. My first example is my #1 complaint with Facebook. I'm not one of those constant perusers of the site; I don't like to feel like a stalker, and like even less giving that impression to other people. I do, however, like to make sure I don't forget anyones birthday. Forgetting the special day is a sure-fire way of making people think you no longer care about them.

When Facebook was in its infancy and adolescence, birthdays were easy to keep track of. Log-in and load up the homepage and BAM! A box on the right lets you know it's Clarke's birthday today, and Sally's on Sunday! The homepage itself was streamlined and efficient, letting you navigate further into the site to access the information you want. Nowadays things are much different. The homepage is full of information that may or may not be pertinent to you at all. At the top of the right-hand side is a section titled "Suggestions". Sometimes the suggestions are handy, more often they are not. Hey! Do you want to become a fan of cereal? How about becoming a fan of dirty bath towels? Instead of letting users decide when and what they want to be fans of, this information is blasted at them on their own homepage. Not very homey if you ask me. Birthdays can still be found on the right side, but not until you've scrolled almost 2/3's down the page, farther than the average user is willing to delve on any given page.

Our immediate attention (vital in website design) is given to useless features and mundane information, while actual information relating to friends (the raison d'etre of a social networking site) is relegated to less vital space and smaller confines. If I were to change the layout of this page I would place birthday's back at the top of the page where people can easily locate it. Out of sight is often out of mind, and people often forget to scroll down and check. Placing these important dates at the top would keep us from forgetting our friends anniversary of birth.

Another change I would make to Facebook's homepage would be to get rid of the incessant chatter that continualy spatters without abatement. Status changes are constantly for your friends are constantly updated on this page, and often the status changes are not worth mentioning. While you might be looking for important changes such as relationship changes or whether someone has found that all-important job, you're forced to sift through announcements that the Roomba is in Tyler's top 5 things found in his bedroom. Wow, it's imperative that I know such things. Not only does it clutter the homepage with these useless details, it gives people with no time and a lot of nothing to say the ability to crowd the rest of our homepages with their thoughts and opinions. Mary is tired! Mary is taking a nap! Mary went to the bathroom! Mary is bored! Obviously, Mary, we can tell you're bored because you post your status every 3 minutes regardless of the relevance it has on the rest of our lives!

If I were to change this feature I would make it it's own section on the site, so if users want to see all these status changes they can navigate one page deeper to find them. If a user doesn't wish to know the 49 steps to Mary's day, they wouldn't be forced to see them. Also, that large section of the homepage which is currently given to these upates could be customized, much like an iGoogle homepage. Add your own features and let the updates you want tell you what's happening in their respective worlds.

As you can see I have issues with some of the design decisions made by the Facebook team. If I had the influence to institute these changes I would, and I believe they would help attract people to Facebook instead of pushing them away in droves. There are more reasons why people are leaving Facebook, such as privacy issues and the ability of employers to see all the scandalous pictures you post (your fault, not theirs). Regardless, it wouldn't hurt to unclutter the homepage and let users find their own information instead of overwhelming them with things they probably don't find useful at all.