Facebook Home Page Redesign Details
It has been leaked that Facebook was testing a new homepage design. Screenshots revealed a few interesting changes, such as a decrease in size for the Facebook Publisher box and a new, Friendfeed-like “Top News” filter for the news feed.
Here we have an exclusive inside look into the new home page, engagement ads, and more. Below, we provide a detailed explanation of the new Facebook home page.
Changes to the Home Page
In this four page document, Facebook outlines the benefits of the redesign to advertisers who will clearly be affected. First, Facebook states its goal for the new homepage: “simplifying the user experience on the home page by introducing Top News and Recent Activity streams.”
Here’s Facebook’s full explanation:
“Facebook is simplifying the user experience on the home page by introducing Top News and Recent Activity streams. Now, when users log on to Facebook for the first time in a while, they will see the most important stories that they missed while they were away. From there, users can navigate to the real-time stream and toggle between both views throughout their sessions. In addition to making it easier for users to view content that is most relevant to them, this change also speeds up the time it takes for the home page to load and makes birthday reminders more prominent.
Ultimately, Facebook believes these changes will increase engagement on the home page by surfacing more relevant stories to users.”
Summary: The new home page emphasizes on toggling between views and feeds in order to personalize the experience. It also decreases Facebook’s load time, which will likely have a major impact on time on site and bandwidth costs.
News Feed Changes
Facebook then details the changes to the News Feed. There are two different ways to view it: the summary view (Top News) and the real-time view (Recent Activity). The first filter is a prominent feature of and likely the FriendFeed team had something to do with building Top News. It also looks like Facebook is removing the Highlights section on the right hand sidebar of the home page in favor of the Top News filter.
Oh, there is one more doozy: Facebook is bringing back a lot of new information to the News Feed. From Facebook’s document:
“Facebook has also put information back into the stream that people have asked for, including photo tags, friend acceptances, relationships, Event RSVPs and group memberships. In addition, birthdays are now viewable above the fold.”
We’ve heard complaints about losing these news feed items from the last redesign, so it’s a plus that the world’s largest social network is bringing them back.
Engagement Ads and Fan Pages
Facebook believes the upcoming changes are a boon for brand advertisers. The first piece of news: fanning, RSVPs for events, and virtual gifts will reappear in the social stream organically, which makes it easier for brands to expand their reach across Facebook. The right column of the homepage is also stripped down, which will make ads on the home page more prominent.The last thing Facebook addresses is the new designs impact on Pages. The company believes it will increase the number of new fans on Facebook pages. Their explanation:
“The opportunity to acquire Fans increases with this new home page design. This is due to several reasons including the migration of Fan stories into the center stream, and the increase in “Suggestions” from one to two connections.”
There is no indication of when this new design goes live.
What do you think of the possible upcoming changes?
Tags: facebook, freindfeed
20. October 2009 at 12:58 pm :
It still looks like garbage compared with how it used to be before they put those thumbnails all over the page. I actually wrote Greasemonkey scripts to disable the thumbnails, but they change Facebook’s layout so much that I don’t bother to keep updating it.
22. October 2009 at 11:28 am :
i didn’t liked much the new one, the old one was far more better than this one and the reason was it was totally devoid of useless applications that are available now.
28. October 2009 at 1:46 am :
your tips seems useful i will use them and let you know the results.
28. October 2009 at 7:29 am :
yeah Frank me too, i didn’t find anything special this time, Facebook always tries to make something new, but they should also take notice and review from what fans think abt it and then they should apply, if they found that applied things is not good of has not much response, then they should change it immediatly.
16. December 2009 at 3:05 am :
I get the impression that a large majority of Facebook users have a good whinge when Facebook change the setup, but I always think that they are re-designing for the right reasons. The whingers just like an excuse to whinge.:D
9. February 2010 at 9:51 am :
A large amount of Facebook users are not overly happy with the change of the layout and many think that it didn’t need it. However i think its been done for the right reasons, originally Facebook was crammed with applications which the current design couldn’t handle the layout for.
However now the design has been modernized and is now displaying the huge amount of applications in a much more “fun” and “exciting” way.
25. March 2010 at 10:54 am :
I like the new facebook design.. i do think it’s a little less user friendly
but im sure once you get used to it it’s fine..
28. March 2010 at 6:21 pm :
sometimes, if something works… you shouldnt fix it
thats what i think about the new facebook design
28. April 2010 at 10:48 am :
Face-book is a program to manage your personal data. Now face-book is trying to provide you a new look of a homepage. This redesigned new homepage consists of four page documents, introducing Top News and Recent Activity streams so that the user can navigate through. Also user can make his birthday reminders more prominent as well.
10. January 2011 at 11:46 am :
There is an update to the facebook user interface once a month, it is starting to get ridiculous. I am ready for Facebook to start allowing APIs. I want to get one user interface down and be able to stick with it - much like Tweetdeck for twitter.
4. April 2011 at 1:28 am :
Thank you, this site has given us an useful information
26. May 2011 at 12:39 am :
its really nice …… and i am thanksfull to them i am very happily to see that facebook updates .