Great post. I actually *liked* the new Facebook Facelift until I read your post… uh, thanks. :-\
Yes, things could/should be improved and the new features should be better thought out — but should we actually “expect a better user experience” when using web software and services? Maybe half-baked features, inane management ‘design’ decisions, and ’semi-usable partially accessible features’ are good enough?
I was really impressed with the Facebook redesign at first, too! But since we know what awesome features can be implemented in a modern web app, it’s easy to get frustrated when big companies like Facebook (with tons of resources at their disposal) churn out half-baked stuff.
This is especially frustrating since we’re both using capable browsers (you on Firefox and me on Safari).
I was expect so much more and I know we can blame at least part of it on Internet Explorer.
OMG. This is worse than I thought. Any friends you may have previously asked Facebook to “Show Less of ” are now completely hidden from all news feeds, even the filtered ones.
I mistakenly thought that these friends would be filtered from my main News Feed but stay in the filtered feeds.
But, no. If you had previously stated that you wanted to see less posts from a friend, they’re now completely hidden! Oh, and good luck finding the screen to unhide them. (OK, I’ll share it with you: the link is at the very bottom of the news feed page.)
So, what good is this feature? If I don’t want to see a friend at all, I’ll just unfriend them, right?
Oh well, I guess that’s harsh. I better go back and unhide all of my friends.
But guess what.
It’s broken! The feature to See Hidden Friends does not show them! I tried it several times on 2 browsers and even refreshed the page a few times. These friends don’t show anywhere on any pages!
If you were previously using the “Show Less of ” feature, you’re out of luck.
It appears that Facebook is making an attempt a making the “real-time” feed actually update in real time and also actually allowing us to use the filters!
This is a start in the right direction. How hard would it be to make your feature do what you say?!?!?
Good post… it’ll be great to have more choices and innovation in the OS space. One of the main things I like about Google is their interest in listening to their customers, “We hear a lot from our users and their message is clear — computers need to get better.” Also, they seem to understand the benefits of following standards and open source. Competition is good for the consumer, and (considering Google’s track record) there’s a good chance that we as consumers will have another option when we buy a new machine that’s actually “better” — free, intuitive, more useful and desirable — than the OS choices we have today.
Since starting this article, Gloss, the new web browser for women, has been discontinued. Would-be Gloss users are instead redirected to try Flock.
Great post. I actually *liked* the new Facebook Facelift until I read your post… uh, thanks. :-\
Yes, things could/should be improved and the new features should be better thought out — but should we actually “expect a better user experience” when using web software and services? Maybe half-baked features, inane management ‘design’ decisions, and ’semi-usable partially accessible features’ are good enough?
Great post, keep ‘em coming!
Hey Paul!
I was really impressed with the Facebook redesign at first, too! But since we know what awesome features can be implemented in a modern web app, it’s easy to get frustrated when big companies like Facebook (with tons of resources at their disposal) churn out half-baked stuff.
This is especially frustrating since we’re both using capable browsers (you on Firefox and me on Safari).
I was expect so much more and I know we can blame at least part of it on Internet Explorer.
Time to switch people!!!!
OMG. This is worse than I thought. Any friends you may have previously asked Facebook to “Show Less of ” are now completely hidden from all news feeds, even the filtered ones.
I mistakenly thought that these friends would be filtered from my main News Feed but stay in the filtered feeds.
But, no. If you had previously stated that you wanted to see less posts from a friend, they’re now completely hidden! Oh, and good luck finding the screen to unhide them. (OK, I’ll share it with you: the link is at the very bottom of the news feed page.)
So, what good is this feature? If I don’t want to see a friend at all, I’ll just unfriend them, right?
Oh well, I guess that’s harsh. I better go back and unhide all of my friends.
But guess what.
It’s broken! The feature to See Hidden Friends does not show them! I tried it several times on 2 browsers and even refreshed the page a few times. These friends don’t show anywhere on any pages!
If you were previously using the “Show Less of ” feature, you’re out of luck.
Could they make this any worse?
It appears that Facebook is making an attempt a making the “real-time” feed actually update in real time and also actually allowing us to use the filters!
This is a start in the right direction. How hard would it be to make your feature do what you say?!?!?
http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/facebook_tweaks_new_homepages_in_response_to_user.php
Good post… it’ll be great to have more choices and innovation in the OS space. One of the main things I like about Google is their interest in listening to their customers, “We hear a lot from our users and their message is clear — computers need to get better.” Also, they seem to understand the benefits of following standards and open source. Competition is good for the consumer, and (considering Google’s track record) there’s a good chance that we as consumers will have another option when we buy a new machine that’s actually “better” — free, intuitive, more useful and desirable — than the OS choices we have today.
Here’s the Google blog post for folks who want to read more =>
http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2009/07/introducing-google-chrome-os.html