Absolutely hate the new facebook redesign. It’s absurd that how I view my homepage depends on how other people have their applications set. You know, I don’t want to know that you should live in Paris, that your IQ is 140, or that you are a master of 80s movie trivia. I used to have it set that I got very little “news” about applications in my newsfeed, but now that seems to be all it is.

Did they even have any focus groups for this thing?

I think that the redesign of the new Facebook is terrible mess. I miss a lot of the original Facebook features.

Things that you don’t see anymore is:

- Friends that are tagged
- Relationships
- Events

and a lot more. Go to http://m.facebook.com to see the functions that I miss in the redesign.

Ohh and then I really miss the ‘control’ that you had over your old profile page. That is totally gone now.

Also you’re constant spammed by various quizzes and other application junk in your newsfeed - and thats even after I blocked those applications. SO ANNOYING!!

So yes, this is a major stepdown in my eyes.

I’d love to go back to the old Facebook, but this app didn;t work for me. I would also much rather FB themselves allow us to go back rather than doing it by the back door so to speak - as this could be stopped at any time.

My main reason for using facebook is to keep up with my friends and this new version actively prevents me from doing this effectively. It only shows me selected status updates (I have to go via the friends update page to see more_) - one from my husband took 20 hours to arrive on the feed(!) Photo albums also take an age to arrive. I was tagged in one so knew it was up but it took approximately 48 hours for it to appear in the feed. I don’t need to see my friends pictures alongside their status messages - I know who they are thank you! - and this just takes up space and wastes time.

In fact there is *nothing* I like about this new version. It is inferior in every way shape and form. I have no idea what they were thinking when they rolled this out, but I have noticed that I’ve been spending more time on Twitter and Myspace and less on facebook since it happened, so maybe it is a good thing

Generally, Facebook users are resistant to change. I’ve heard nothing but complaints about the new design.

Again, I am generalizing, but Facebook users seem to think they own the site. Not all users have this mentality, but it’s the loud ones that get all the attention. I have to remind people that Facebook can change the design or the terms of service as they please, since Facebook runs the site, not the users. The use of Facebook is indeed a privilege, not a right, and Web 2.0 users seem to forget that from time to time. If you don’t like the changes, leave Facebook and move on to another site. To some people this might sound harsh, but it’s the reality.

I’m not saying Facebook shouldn’t listen to users’ feedback — they should, but if Facebook believes a design change or a change in the TOS is in the website’s best interest, then they have every right to do so. If Facebook values its relationships with the users, then they will take the feedback into consideration and make changes. But it’s just annoying to see Facebook users strutting around banging on their drums without realizing it’s Facebook’s site, and if they want to run the site then they can put up the $6 billion (or whatever Zuckerberg values the site at) and buy the site and then they can do whatever they want with the site. Until then, it’s Facebook running the show.

I’d love to love the new layout… and esthetically I do. What I can’t understand is how is it possible that they passed from a working real-time feed to what clearly appears to be a static feed. I’m hoping this is some kind of bug that’ll get fixed, since they did advertise the new version as “real time”. But I’m getting more and more hopeless.

As posted in a previous comment my major problem with the new design is that many important FB stories (new friendships, group joining, photo comments, relationship status, application installs etc) are missing!

Why the do that ?

Yes, Facebook owns the site and they can do whatever they want, but doesn’t that old cliche still apply - “The customer is always right?”

No, I don’t like the new interface… but I compare the change to when grocery stores make changes to their isles and move things around so you can’t find anything anymore without a GPS system. We fuss, moan and groan, but we’ll get used to it…then one day Facebook will change it again and users will, once again, fuss, moan and groan!

Change makes the world go round…it’s going to happen whether we like it or not.

It’d be fine if they’d reinstate the Live Feed. I like the ability to sort the news feed, but bring back the live feed or integrate it into the news feed. I want to interact with my friends, not just read stale status updates. The Highlites section is a waste of space unless we can interact with it. It’s the same old stuff, day after day, and if someone puts something unpleasant up there I have to look at it for days! I haven’t seen any Pages updates in a while either.

I’m with Manos and the guy above. seriously, why in the HELL did they say it was “real-time” when it’s NOT. unbelievable.

@ 3:42 pm:

Yes, it *is* Facebook’s site, but it is the users of that site who make it popular. Do they really want people to leave and go somewhere else? I don’t think so, but, eventually that’s what will happen.

Personally, I hate the new layout because it segregates things, makes them harder to find and see. I love the “redesign” that they had before. Their new filtering is terrible and they have removed some of the granular abilities and functionality they had before. That is unfortunate.

I know this sound strange. But I just did a refresh at my frontpage, and just like nothing I got my old new Facebook design back. It’s magic!

Hmm! This is even more strange. Now I got the one back again.

First I got this error:

“Account Temporarily Unavailable.

Your account is currently unavailable due to a site issue. We expect this to be resolved shortly. Please try again in a few minutes.”

Problems:

1. I don’t have enough control over what I see. What happened to “less of” “more of.” Why can’t i delete things without deleting all updates from that person.
2.The static “highlighted” links on the right bar don’t change often enough. They get stale. And why can’t i delete things i don’t like
3. Photos. You can’t see the album view that the old facebook allowed. If you click on photos now you just get the one or two at a time recently updated.
4. No “x of your friends changed their profile pic”

Oh yeah I also miss live feed. And its worth noting that I also much prefer this aesthetically.

having to visit individual profiles to see activities that were previously visible on the home page is a real step backwards with the new profile. I can honestly say that I spend less time on Facebook since the new implementation. I do not have time to go visit each friends profile to see what they are up to besides the status updates, which for some reason Facebook seems to think is all that matters to the users. Speaking for myself, they could not be more wrong.

I just miss the old live feed, now I can only see status updates and some more information but really dont know what happens as before, sometimes I still look at m.facebook.com where the live feed still works. Jan

I manage quite a few apps and have been getting lots of complaints from users about the new design. My friends have been asking where features like “live feed” are. Quite a few complain the new design gives them a headache and they can’t find anything (too many pictures).
One biggy is the removal of being able to post full stories to your own wall. Many of my users miss this feature, which Facebook says they removed because it wasn’t used enough. You could only post full stories to your own wall, so I can understand lower usage.
Personally, I don’t like it. I miss the one-line stories that were mostly background noise, but sometimes contained nice tidbits.

2 bad (out of many) Facebook design changes:

I don’t think it is a question about whether the new design is easy to use or not. It’s a question about the new design and feed algorithms impairing what was good about Facebook.

My two examples:

Applications you have not added can post feeds on your Wall!! (I just got an application feed on my wall from Friends For Sale! - An app I would never add and don’t want to pollute my pages)

Applications appear more in the News Feed / Live Feed and the only way to opt-out is by hiding your friends using the apps. With the old design you could hide the applications (I don’t want to hide interesting friends just because they are using some stupid app. I want the good old fb algorithm to know that I hate apps, just like it used to know.)

Well, at least I see an upside to this bad change of design:

I’m from Denmark where Facebook is huge (more than 1/3 is on) and Twitter so far has only been for the really net-savvy.
But since the new Facebook came on, it seems the early adopters and the early majority is being pushed over to Twitter (people following me, and asking in their fb status updates who is on Twitter!). This is good news for Danish information seekers and Twitter, but a bad move for Facebook the company.
That is, if they are not planning to buy Twitter??

(thanks Nick for a great site)

I dont like the new design. It seems when everyone just starts to get used to a site, Facebook goes and changes it. Annoying!

Normally I welcome all changes that Facebook makes and I have been pleased with the ones they made in the past. But this last change is has more drawbacks then advantages.

The only advantage that I see is that the home page news feed is real-time.

However, I see the following problems with the new design:

1. The stories from applications show up in the news feed even though I have not installed those applications. There must be a way to hide stories from selected applications just like there is an ability to hide stories from selected users.

2. Filtering by friends list is useless to me. I set up friends list for privacy controls and for being able to invite a bunch of people to events at once. I did not create the friends list for filtering of the news feed. Although it may be interesting to filter news feed by friends lists, this should not be the primary way of filtering the news feed. It should be moved to the bottom of the filter column on the left.

3. Certain types of stories are no longer in the news feed: New friendshipes, joining of groups, change of profile photos, change of relationship statuses

4. On user’s walls, comments on photos and videos are just one-liners now. There are no longer thumbnail of the photo or video that is being commented on. It is very useful to see the thumbnails before bothering to see the comment. And it is nice to see the comment itself right in the news feed.

5. Recent Activity grouping is a terrible idea. The activities are no longer strictly chronological. Often times the activity happens after some other news story, but it is grouped to the Recent Activity block which appears below that story.

6. There are no more variable story sizes on users walls. It was great being able to emphasize certain stories by changing their size.

7. The upcoming birthdays and events are no longer shown on the home page. Only birthdays and events that happen today are shown.

So that being said, I don’t think Facebook should revert back to the old version. I think they should just fix the issues that I outlined above.

Raphael

People seem to be misinterpreting the term “real-time” in the new homepage.

Real-time means that when you refresh the page manually, the news will contain the MOST RECENT stories from ALL of your friends. Before it would contain only selected stories from only selected friends based on your interactions with them on the site.

The Real-Time tab on the old home page used to automatically refresh the page with all of your friends activities. I agree that it was nice. But they removed it probably because it was a wasted server load. People may have that tab selected and leave it up in their browser and forget about it. The browser will keep making server requests even if no one is looking at the page. By requiring people to manually refresh the page, the server request will only be issued when users really need it.

Regarding old facebook -

Look at this poll, more than 90% say they do not like the new layout.

http://apps.facebook.com/layoutvote/?ref=nf

BTW - It was not simple to find your comment area.

Hadara

I think the new design is awful. I hate the emphasis on friend’s status updates. The huge font makes it feel like everyone is shouting at you. I thought the ability to filter feeds was one of the most useful features of the previous design; now it’s just a disorganized mess. I honestly haven’t been using Facebook as much since the change. I might as well join Twitter, or go back to Myspace: it’s all the same now.

If they want to change it fine. It’s their site. However, my chief complaint is and will remain for now: I keep my FB profile rated G because of my family and friends with small children around. With Facebook’s new layout, the highlight section to the right of my home page shows RATED R APPLICATIONS and their icons/labels and I am NOT interested in seeing women’s breasts, lacy bottoms, and I don’t care whether or not you “like to have sex” or enjoy “cuddling in bed”. There must be some way to give me the capability to keep my facebook rated G by allowing us the option to disable rated R applications from our own home pages! IF I wanted to join a porn site I would. I didn’t though, I joined Facebook…

Looks like the group got deleted…

Does anyone know, if the facebook team is about to turn the old version back? What are they waiting for? Nobody likes it and its really terrible this new version. Is there any way to persuade them to do put on the old facebook??

We’ve given up trying to change our facebook back now. It’s seemed a bit more fun to edit it instead!

http://www.thoughtden.co.uk/blog/2009/03/20/facebooks-status-update-allyourfacebookarebelongtous

Have fun!

I don’t like the new facebook. I don’t like the new look, but the reason I haven’t been on FB in a week is that the functionality has changed. It doesn’t provide the service it did before. Very sad, because it provided a very useful service to me before: the ability to casually socialize with people I know.

It used to have a block party feel. I could look at the home page and see what people were up to. Now it has a frenetic feel. I can look at the home page and see every single activity the friend who happens to be on right now has done. Its irritating and frenetic and no longer functional for socializing.

It sucks! It’s impossible to follow. I don’t get updates from my friends anymore, except what tests they all take. The design is too big and in your face. I can’t even look at it anymore. Over 1million people have voted that the hate it… but Facebook as a company seems to be getting worse and worse..which confirms Einstein’s opinion on stupidity…

If the new design actually WORKED, I would live with the pain-in-the-ass features, and insane layout. HOWEVER, IT DOESN’T WORK. It takes forever to load, it freezes. It has crashed Firefox a number of times. And no, I don’t have VISTA. I’m not about to go BUY A NEW COMPUTER, just to use Facebook. And yes I have the latest edition of flash. GRRRR!

I don’t like the new layout either.

Reasons:
1. Use to like this option: “less of” “more of.” That way I could filter out the stuff or people I did not want to see updates on.
2. Live update, and also if someone joined or left a group was useful for me.
3. Someone mentioned this but the upcoming birthdays was very useful.

Overall the homepage sucks now. Before I could edit it and make it my own and I got all the information I wanted to see. Now it’s useless and just want them to go back to the way it was.

I agree. I hate the change that they have made to facebook home page. Please change it back. I am missing out on alot of information that my friends are posting.