While many have been talking about the “new, simplified” homepage layout on facebook, I had yet to experience it for myself until today. I’m still not clear on the process by which profiles get switched over from the old to new layout as some of my co-workers were switched last week, yet my account didn’t make the change until today. Anyone know how that works?

The most prominent change in the layout is the moving of the notification bar from the bottom of the screen to the top left navigation. Now only the chat box appears at the bottom of the browser. The new left nav begins immediately after the facebook logo and places your friend requests, messages and notifications right before the new, larger search bar.  Although I think the placement of the links is a bit unnecessary (why not just keep it where it was instead of confusing people?), I do like the drop down feature when you scroll over the messages tab. You no longer have to click on the messages tab to get a quick view of your latest messages, convenient.

Following down the left side of the page you’ll find navigation links for your News Feed, Messages, Events, Photos, and Friends and then by a new feature: Friends Online. This is basically a snippet from your chat box in the bottom right corner, however it is a nice way to engage users to use the chat feature more often…thus keeping users on facebook.com for longer.

The middle of the page remains mostly unchanged except for the lack of the “View Live Feed”…well, actually it’s still there but now it’s called “Most Recent”. I guess facebook received enough feedback about the confusion between the News Feed vs. Live Feed and decided to change it.  Now what you’ll see is just a “News Feed” with two link  options on the right: “Top News” (the old news feed) and “Most Recent” (the old live feed).

Overall, I like the new homepage layout on facebook. It’s always good to continually evaluate the usability of your website and it’s clear that facebook is concerned about this. Although their frequent changes to their homepage layout may be frustrating for users at first, they ultimately introduce useful additions and changes that make for a better site experience. So, what are your thoughts on the new facebook homepage?

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