Facebook scrapped last year's redesign because your screen is too small
Earlier today, Dustin Curtis wrote a post about the recent Facebook desktop redesign.
Dustin makes a few assumptions about the rationale behind the redesign, including how some of the beauty and cleanliness of the initial version tested a year ago was discarded for the sake of short-term metrics. I thought it’d be helpful to shed some light on the real reasons why the design has evolved. The goal of making News Feed all about the content—with bigger photos and more expressive stories—is near and dear to my heart. It’s why we started the project in the first place.
But every design has its day of reckoning. And that reckoning is with the people you design for. If the change you’re introducing is better for them—if it helps them do the things they want to do more easily, if it’s more loved—then your design has succeeded. If it does not achieve these things, then it’s time to roll up your sleeves, learn which of your assumptions were wrong, and get to fixing.
