Facebook has announced a complete redesign of its News Feed, giving its core service a fresh look and feel which is more consistent with the new ways that people are sharing information.
The revamped News Feed, which CEO Mark Zuckerberg dubbed “richer, simpler and more beautiful”, likening it to the “best personalised newspaper,” has three main components: larger images, more feeds and a mobile-inspired design consistent across all devices.
The social-networking site has now put a greater emphasis on imagery. Photos are larger, appearing front and centre and taking up about 50% of news feed stories.
The company, which presented the new design at a press event at its Menlo Park, California headquarters on 7 March, said that the new News Feed aims to reduce the “clutter” and focus on the stories that each of the network’s one billion plus users care about.
Along with the clearer and more navigable design and bigger photos, users now have access to different types of feeds and greater control on how they are displayed. They can subscribe to feeds from all friends, close friends, photos, music, games and others and can filter those feeds by categories.
The new design is inspired by m-commerce, as a growing number of users are accessing the site via phones and tablets, and Facebook has made the overall experience more consistent across devices, adding more white space and a new site navigation bar.
From a user-point of view, the redesign is an improvement but it remains to be seen how marketers will respond to this “big change.”
