Facebook has ditched last year’s major redesign in favor of a new look that was rolled out earlier this month. Now Facebook’s product design director, Julie Zhuo explains the reason for scrapping that design. According to her, that particular design din’t work well everywhere. She wrote in a blog post that:
The design we tested a year ago wasn’t better for the majority of people. While I (and maybe you as well) have sharp, stunning super high-resolution 27-inch monitors, many more people in the world do not. Low-res, small screens are more common across the world than hi-res Apple or Dell monitors. And the old design we tested didn’t work very well on a 10-inch Netbook. A single story might not even fit on the viewport. Not to mention, many people who access the website every day only use Facebook through their PC—no mobile phones or tablets. Scrolling by clicking or dragging the browser scrollbar is still commonly done because not everyone has trackpads or scroll wheels. If more scrolling is required because every story is taller, or navigation requires greater mouse movement because it’s further away, then the site becomes harder to use. These people may not be early adopters or use the same hardware we do, but the quality of their experience matters just as much.
SOURCE: Julie Zhuo (Medium)
