Facebook Users Loath Layout, Re-Redesign in Works

You'd think Facebook redesigns were tantamount to government-administered colonoscopies. The popular social networking site recently faced a virtual revolt after adapting its interface to one that, intentionally or not, closely reflects rival Twitter.

Sometimes people like change. A new home arrangement can change one's mood, and perhaps even a new TV can improve it dramatically. However, just about no one seems to enjoy it when Facebook makes alterations to its iconic web page, particularly when changes can make basic functions, like finding the 'events' tab, more difficult than it was the day before. (Source: businessweek.com)

Users incensed with 'Twitbook'

As it is, the new Facebook, like Twitter, is devoted to status updates. The home page is now dominated by the random thoughts and feelings of friends, with each user having the ability to comment on those updates. Imagine someone standing up in the office and screaming at the top of their lungs that they feel like Indian food for lunch, or hated the most recent James Bond flick -- before everyone else around them bellowed out their own two cents.

Thing is, it's not that the redesign is particularly awful -- it's just vastly different than previous designs. It did take this writer about seven solid minutes to find that 'events' tab I mentioned in order to check the status of an upcoming wine-tasting party -- only to find there's now a permanent bar that follows users as they click around. That's useful, but much different than Facebook's previous design, which placed tabs like events on the left side of the home page.

6% approval ratings

Unfortunately for Facebook, most people don't appear willing to learn its new design. According to reports, of 1.3 million people voting on the redesign, only 80,400 have voted in favor. That's a pretty miserable six per cent. A new Facebook group dedicated to removing the new design, called "Petition Against the 'New Facebook,'" has accumulated an astounding 1.7 million members.

As a result of this massive outcry, Facebook has caved. Company executive Christopher Cox has promised major changes to the status updating system, the left-hand toolbar, and measures returning prominence to new friend requests and event invitations. (Source: computerworld.com)

Users are angry, sure, but Cox and Facebook must be pleased that 1.7 million people are so passionate about the product that they would protest its mere redesign.

I wish I'd invented something so sacred!