Why Users Call New Facebook Design a Nightmare

Facebook rolled out a new design their interface. Facebook users reacted with not only displeasure, but actual hate. These are the reasons why so many are threatening to quit Facebook.

What may be contributing to the hate is that Facebook announced the change becomes permanent on September 1, 2020.

Users Hate New Facebook Interface

A search on twitter for the words, Facebook Interface surfaces scores of negative tweets. Virtually every single tweet is negative.

And not just negative but passionately hating on Facebook:

Why Users Hate New Facebook: It’s Confusing

One of the reasons users hate the new Facebook design so much is because they find it confusing.

A hallmark of a good user interface is how simple it is to find and do things on a web page.

Users shouldn’t have to read a manual in order to publish a Facebook post.

Facebook Navigational Icons are Confusing

Navigational icons should instantly tell you what you get when you click on them.

Example of Frustrating Facebook Navigation Icons

It’s not clear what happens when you click on the above Facebook icons.

The Messenger icon has a sideways letter “Z” and a little tail to indicate it’s a speech bubble.

But it’s so small on a desktop that a user isn’t going to instantly recognize that it’s the Facebook Messenger Icon. It has to be figured out.

And it’s not that one thing that is causing confusion in users. It’s a host of Facebook redesign quirks that creates the perception that the new Facebook design needs a manual.

Facebook Group Icon

When there’s group activity the group icon that looks like a cat paw will show a number.

Clicking on the cat paw icon takes you to a page that suggests a bunch of other groups to join.

That’s not what a user expects when they click the “group activity” icon to see activity.

Being able to understand what an icon means just by looking at the icon helps users do things.

Failure to do that causes frustration, like this person who tweeted they almost reported a post while trying to add a laughing emoji to it.

Redesign is So Bad Users Threaten to Quit Facebook

The confusion created by Facebook’s new layout is causing some users to consider opting out of Facebook altogether.

Facebook Had Months to Fix User Interface

The look and feel of the new interface is modern and pleasant to look at. But as many have commented, it appears the Facebook engineers were copying Twitter’s design.

I tried the previous beta version of the redesign and discovered too many bugs to continue using it. Clicking on buttons resulted in a delayed or no action at all.

This supposedly “ready” version has fixed some of those problems.

Facebook has released a new interface that was supposed to be an improvement. Judging by the extreme hate expressed on Twitter and Facebook itself, Facebook has many more issues to fix.

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