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The internet is a social place. Twitter and Facebook are two websites that million of people use on a dailty basis. Both sites have also been recently re-designed. I thought I would drop my two cents into the bucket about all the chatter that is going around on the interwebs.

Facebook

1. Separation of content
2. More white space
3. Lots of nice little filtering options!

Separation of Content

Facebook is all about information and ways to sort it, weather its by profile, group or application. I think moving the profile into a tabbed format is a good thing. Once users acclimate to the new tabbed design they will be able to find specific profile information faster. Ex. You wont have to scroll through peoples applications and info to post on their wall.

More Whitespace!

Take a deep breath and stretch out – facebook now has more white space! They increased the width to 960 px. The old design was just under 800px. Let your eyes rest and float around in those extra 160px of space!

Filtering Options

Facebook now has lots of nice little filtering options – enabling users to find things faster. Again users will just have to get used to this, but i think its a huge improvement. Ex: to change my profile picture I would normally click the edit button next to my profile, but now all i do is click on the tool tip in the upper right hand corner. Very handy and helpful.

Where Facebook May Have Went Wrong

The book Don’t Make Me Think by Steve Krug suggests that re-designs should be done in phases, instead of complete redesigns. Users need to be slowly and gently ushered into change. However, facebook did allow users to preview the new design and send in feedback. I still think that for the less than computer savvy users of facebook this redesign is a change that will take some getting used to. Users reactions to the redesign range from extatic to angry – according to an article on CNN.

Twitter

1. Bigger tabs and update button
2. More white space
3. Ajaxy behind the scenes stuff

Tabs

Twitter plans to add more features so they moved to a verticle navigation format. I like the file tab efffect so you can easily tell what page you are on. The tabs and submit button are also bigger and easier to click.

White Space

Twitter, like facebook, was getting crammed with content (although alot less than facebook). They added more space between tweets and subtle divider lines.

Behind The Scenes

They also mentioned that they did some behind the scenes stuff…so twitter will run better now. I still get the fail whale every once in a while, but its been alot better. We will see how this goes in the future.

So Who Is The winner?

Even though the two sites are really different I like the twitter re-design alot more, and im sure the users do as well, since they are phasing in changes slowly and building new elements into the design. I also think twitter is less cluttered, but that is due to the nature of the site.

What Do You Think?

Let me know what you think of the new facebook and twitter! Love it? Hate it? Leave a comment and let me know!