Facebook redesigned – failed us all, especially web designers

Few days ago Facebook unveiled their new looks. I am aware of the fact that every time Facebook changes something, people yell “AAARGG HELL NO”, just to be silent 5 days later and accept those changes as good. And indeed, when version prior to this one came out, i considered it to be excellent because it solved a lot of architectural design problems, and made Facebook more, how should i say, interesting.

This version is just bad, and it is bad from two different standpoints.

First – too much faces.
I know this is FACEbook, but there are just too much faces now on the homepage. Every post has a face associated to it. In reality there is no need to put face of a person next to every action. Someone shares a link – i see a face. Someone adds friend – i see a face. This makes homepage look too chunky and too heavy.

Second – identification of MY facebook
Of all those faces i see on homepage, my face at the top is the same size as everyone else. This makes it hard for me to quickly comprehend that this is indeed MY account. My picture should be bigger, or in any way more visible.

Third – switch to Twitter-like “what’s on your mind”
The switch from Status to What’s on Your Mind makes Facebook too much Twitter-like. People are now compelled to spam their ideas all the freaking time. “Status”, may he rest in peace, was more personal and more related to an individual. This switch will, inevitably, spawn tons of useless messages, diluting Facebook into Twitter madness.

Fourth – the ROUND CORNERS
This point touches me more than any other. Facebook was one of the last bastions of safety and refuge for web designers – any time a client asked “can my website have rounded corners”, web designers could answer “well, it could, but we suggest not to, because Facebook is massively successful and it does not rely on rounded corners”. I hope you folks reading this realize that from today all websites will have rounded corners. How can you battle against client’s argument “well, Facebook had square corners, and now they redesigned into round”?

New web awaits us, and it is fat, rounded and chunky.