Facebook has been experimenting with a new layout for weeks, and a few days ago they announced that the new layout would be rolled out to their entire base of users. The “back to the old Facebook” link is gone now that the new layout is official, with the re-arranged interface leaving some users upset, and others confused. At this point it does not appear as if Facebook is going to scrap the results of what have probably been months of development, so it is up to the users to get accustomed to the new interface.
The change is mostly difficult because people are so accustomed to the old layout — throwing them into an entirely new layout shakes things up. Most of Facebook’s features are still present, just waiting to be found in different places. I recommend that you take a look at where all the basic features are, and allow the new interface to sink in over time.
Learn the Tabs
Facebook’s previous layout had most of a person’s information on one page, which had a tendency to scroll on forever. The new layout breaks up the different pieces of information that compose a peron’s profile, and spreads that information out across a series of tabs located at the top of their profile, to the right of their photo and directly under their name.
- Wall: A reverse-chronological listing of a person’s activity on Facebook.
- Info: A person’s biographical information, such as their birthday, hometown, schools, relationship status, activities, employers, etc…
- Photos: Facebook has become one of the biggest photo sharing sites in the world. Photos get their own tab on a person’s profile.
- Boxes: All of a person’s applications are corralled under the “boxes” tab.
So as you can see, Facebook has been working on cleaning up the clutter that emerged from their launch of Facebook Applications by splitting information up among multiple tabs, and pulling together all the pokes, prods, and pirates under the “Boxes” tab.
Comment on Status Updates
If you look closely at your friends’ status updates, you’ll see a little “comment” link after each one. Click on this “comment” link to respond to anyone’s status update.
Custom Filtering Options
Hover your mouse over any item in the news feed, and you will see a little “options” button appear in the top right corner of the feed item. Click “options”, and you can choose to see more or less from that user, and more or less of that type of update (photos, events, etc…).
Where is the wall?
The wall used to have it’s own little area underneath a person’s biographical information. Facebook’s new layout blends a person’s wall in with the rest of their news feed. Go to a person’s profile and look for the “Write something…” input box at the top of their feed — that is how you post something on their wall. Scroll down the page, and you will see postings to their wall appear in blue boxes next to the photo of the person who wrote the message.
Where to go from here
We have covered the basics of Facebook’s new layout, but it is obviously not possible to write about every new feature at once. Now that you have a better idea of where all the key features are located, you should be able to spend some time getting used to the new design. After a few days, everything else should sink in.
