I've been seeing a lot of static, chatter if you will, on the recent Facebook News/Live feed change. Following are my thoughts on the matter.
This change simply wasn't necessary. The way it took form has caused an out-roar. But why? Is it because the ideas are fundamentally bad? Not necessarily, but the implementation was definitively poorly conceived; and the mistakes are as such.
Firstly, from a business perspective, DO NOT unilaterally replace a feature that works and people appear to be happy wit with a new set of features. This is folly in its greatest. Second, assuming you've already made the first mistake on the road to virtual riots, at least provide a way to configure the default setting of which shows up, News or Live. If there is a way its configuration is clearly currently too convoluted for the average web savvy user. Third, don't get rid of the old style or make it too difficult to get back to as the default.
From a UI and design perspective the greatest mistakes were not adding these as alternative views to the existing News feed, using the name News for the "New News" feed instead of something more indicative of the intent. Highlights perhaps? Consider the top bar of the 'News' view as:
[::] News Feed View Highlights Feed View Live Feed [] Make this your default view
(It's a mock up, you get the point right?)
Public outrage problem solved! Seriously, ta-da! See how easy that was? By making this change as a feature addition everyone could be happy and try out the new views without feeling like their existing functionality had been violated!
Most importantly when hundreds of thousands of users (those people that make you relevant) cry foul in a matter of days listen!
As you may have guessed, I'm not a personal fan of the new 'improvement.' What do you think of my assertion that the mistake is taking away a feature vs. my proposed approach of making them a set of configurable alternative options?
Personally I'd really have preferred to see @names in comments and replies more than a big change to the News feed!
-db (software engineer/architect, web designer, occasional social media guy, blah blah blah)
