Facebook's News Feed Product Manager Greg Marra has explained the reasons behind the simpler design of its News Feed. She outlined the decision-making process which considered the feedback of several site users.
Facebook has introduced a new desktop look of its News Feed on Thursday, which included a new font style and bigger shared photos. However, it is far different from what Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg initially showcased a year ago.
When asked what made them discard the initial plan unveiled last year, Marra said that prior to making changes around the site; they gathered opinions and recommendations from Facebook users around the globe first.
"We do in-person usability testing both at Facebook HQ and by sending researchers around the world to meet with and interview people with very different perspectives than ourselves. Since we can only talk to so many people, we also run surveys that tens of thousands of people reply to, telling us qualitatively what's working and what's not working for them. On the site, people can send us feedback and bug reports. With changes this big, we're particularly proactive in asking people what they think," Marra said in an interview with CNET.
After conducting interviews and knowing what was and wasn't working for users, they proceeded with applying small and significant adjustments. Each time they finish working on the issue, they tested it with more people and welcomed their feedbacks and suggestions, then proceed with further adjustments.
After a few "trial and error" on redesigning, they realized that a more radical design wasn't going to work for a large group of users. They found that they needed to do "bigger revamps and change some of the bigger elements of the design, especially the links to navigate around the site," added Marra.
In the bigger iteration, they had to fit everything into a well-integrated design. They enlarged shared photos so users won't have to go to the photo viewer all the time, and changed the font style to the simpler sans-serif fonts, so it will not be visually-distracting. They also highlighted feeds that people used the most, such as the Friends List Feeds, Games Feed, and the Pages Feed, and removed those that weren't used that much.
After finalizing the new design, they tested it, and found that it worked well for Facebook users, so they decided to roll it out now.
