Facebook has just started rolling out a new homepage design to a small number of users, and will be deploying it on a wide scale in the near future. The design takes the navigational elements that have previously been tucked under the “Applications” menu and returns them to the left sidebar of the page (which is actually where they were a long time ago).
The design also includes some UI enhancements, like the ability to send messages direct from your homepage using a pop-over window, rather than having to visit a separate page. There’s also a new emphasis on search — note how much larger the search box is, and its more centered placement on the page.
It also looks like the News Feed filters and friends lists have been removed (or at least no longer take up the entire left side bar). And the naming of the two different homepage streams — Live Feed and News Feed — have changed: they’re both part of the News Feed now, with the live updates under a “Most Recent” tab and the highlights under “Top News”.
The new design isn’t a huge surprise — Facebook has been testing out variations of the design for some time. And they announced back in October that they would be moving many of the navigation elements over to the left side of the screen.
I haven’t gotten to try out the design for myself yet, but I’m liking it a lot. It looks cleaner and easier to use than the old design (I’ve never been a fan of the ‘Applications’ menu concept). Also note the way it handles submenus, keeping navigation elements consistently in the left panel as opposed to arbitrarily scattered in each app. One slightly odd change though: it looks like videos are now actually part of the Photo application.
Twitter user Lwatkins84 tweeted this photo:
And Mathew Sanders has put together a gallery showing off some of the screenshots — note the changes to the Photos application:
This is old news my friend. I had this same design for about a month or more, not quite sure. Also about last week they removed it and my profile has been back to normal since. TBH, it much easier to logout on the older design.
Today February 4th , Facebook celebrates the 6th anniversary of the launch of Facebook. While the exact date of the founding is not exactly clear (since Mark Zuckerberg and eventually the co-founders were hard at work developing the site before it launched) it marks a major milestone for the company which grew from a dorm room to one the world’s largest communication tools, reaching over 375 million users every month.
Facebook has been continuously iterating on their new design with the latest version showing a new location for Facebook Chat.
While the volume of users being tested with the new design appears to be increasing, Facebook is still clearly in the process of making ongoing adjustments. The most significant change in this latest iteration is the adjustment of the chat. Aside from that, Facebook is only making subtle adjustments at this point. You can see the difference from the last iteration in the screenshots below.
In addition to consolidating a number of links under “Settings”, Facebook is rapidly iterating on the new homepage design which is expected to launch in the next couple months.
It’s not old news for most people, smartass. My homepage was just updated for the first time in this new format today. Most of my friends on FB haven’t seen this yet. It’s wonderful to know that you received this update a month ago. I can sleep well tonight.
Mine just started as well. Maybe they were thinking of the last annoying redesign. On top of this supper annoying redesign.
Cue the mass of people complaining about ANY change to Facebook whatsoever.
It’s not “ANY change” it’s takling away 3/4th of the previous options so is actually a few steps backwards.
Beautiful. Nice work Facebook Design.
Guess I’ll start the 1st “The new Facebook sucks and we’re all going to leave” group
That’s funny Cody. We’re going to see lots of those
I always love the irony that you have to be a facebook member to be on a group that hates facebook…
Sign me up Cody. I hate the new FB design. Now my status updates are cluttered with “Bud is now friends with Biff” and other useless tidbits of information. FB you SUCK!
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=276540051223&ref=ts
finally finding a way to easily display all those features they’ve added these past few years.
Jason time to check your gmail account no?
When the crowd says they want a new look facebook, re-re-design. Have to say that it looks a bit cleaner but also looks slightly more cluttered, conflicting statements I know…
It’s fantastic! HUGE thumbs up to the design team.
Can’t help but to notice the prominent Search box. well done!
To say I love this new UI would be an understatement! Good move, FB!
Do you think they got it right this time? Another day, another Facebook redesign. *yawn*
My thoughts exactly!
I like the new design, but almost seems like facebook is getting a bit of an obsessive compulsive disorder about the layout of their site, shuffling the deck chairs. Wonder if it is because they don’t know how to further innovate, or even just correct some of the major negatives,e.g., not being able to link photo albums, not being able to remove or transfer Page Creator status, etc.
I was thinking the same thing. It’s like they are bored so they are rearranging the furniture. To the annoyance of most people. Surprised to see that some people actually like it.
http://wiki.developers.facebook.com/index.php/Developer_Roadmap
I wonder if they will be looking toward allowing users to search the web in the directly from that search bar. Could be a good revenue source, didn’t Myspace make millions off something like that back in the day?
still doesn’t look good.
with that much traffic and load they are not about to load it down with excessive cheesy images.
I think Facebook looks great for what it is, and the new changes look like a big improvement.
I don’t see a “Live Feed” option on that. “News Feed” at this point is crap (I like the real time nature of the filtered “Live Feed” as its as close to “Old Facebook” as I can get).
I’m fine with redesigns, but QUIT TAKING VIEWS AWAY!
It appears that the Live Feed is now the default (called “Most Recent” in the screenshots), and “Top News” is what is now the News Feed.
Queue the “I HATE THE NEW FACEBOOK LAYOUT” and “If we get 1,000,000 to join, Facebook will return to the old layout” groups…
Sign me up.
I’ll join!! I hate the news feed and don’t care when someone joins a group or becomes friends w someone… I just want status updates on my home page!!!
very nice design… and the huge search bar is cool… so maybe facebook will enter this real time search war like a dragon ….
Alberto’s right. Clear that SPAM, dude.
Please tell me “Live Feed” isn’t going to be gone (I dont see it)… News Feed is so annoying.
Yeah, nice redesign and it seems wider than the current design, which was about time if u ask me.
This new redesign is nice, but it won’t make me want to use Facebook more than I do now.
Already knew about this ..lol
Can anyone tell me whether the left side bar remains when viewing a 3rdparty app?
I seem to always be in the first group of rollouts for Twitter/Facebook and other websites. Anyways logged in today and I have the new design. I like it much better, strangely enough this works better due to all the white space on the side, I regularly have my browser at 50% width, makes it much easier to read fb for me.
Feels very Chrome-like and elegant.
I think that might be because he took the shots in Chrome. I may be wrong but i am pretty sure.
Yes, the shots are in Chrome, but there are bits and pieces that mimic that type of UI – the chat buddy list bar is now minimal (think Chrome’s status bar,) dropdown menus are icon-based, et cetera.
Fair enough.
Looks very nice actually
It looks pretty Chrome-y.
Damn, no website can look good with screenshots on a Google Chrome. Ugly ass browser.
I AUTOMATICALLY HATE THIS DESIGN BECAUSE IT IS NEW. I QUIT FACEBOOK.
BRING THE OLD FACEBOOK BACK!!
they should put an option where the user can choose if they want the new or old homepage
most important change:
ads are more blended into content
Got it earlier today. I thought it would be for everybody, but it’s not sadly. I’m a fan of it, except my custom lists are gone ie- i had a filter of about 70 close family/friends as the default. I can’t have that as my default newsfeed anymore. Weigh in on the redesign here, also put up another screenshot:
http://popshiz.com/do_you_like_the_new_facebook_layout