Mark Zuckerberg Right, Facebook Users Wrong
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News Commentary. People should stop whining about the newest Facebook redesign. Design by committee is, simply put, the wrong way to design anything, particularly user interfaces. |
There's no denying that the Facebook redesign is controversial. The New Facebook Vote app has stirred up the masses' reaction. I checked the vote a few minutes ago: About 1.2 million votes against the redesign and nearly 77,000 for it. The masses have spoken and told Mark to frak off. Are they right? Should he?
Absolutely not. Facebook shouldn't give in to their demands. Facebook would be wrong to take the Microsoft approach of letting users write the design story.
A tipster tells us that Zuckerberg sent an email to Facebook staff reacting to criticism of the changes: He said something like "the most disruptive companies don't listen to their customers.'' Another tipster who has seen the email says Zuckerberg implied that companies were "stupid" for "listening to their customers."
No surprise, Valleywag negatively spins Mark's alleged reaction: "Damn the critics, full speed ahead! That's what Zuckerberg seems to be saying. If our tipster is right, Zuckerberg would rather Facebook be "disruptive" than, say, popular, useful, or successful."
Perhaps there is presumption that a social network should be more social about design; an online community should be a community of designers. Absolutely, emphatically not.
Great Ideas Start with One
There are good reasons why one person is largely responsible for making a movie. James Cameron and the $200 million project "Titanic" is my favorite example because: $200 million. A movie studio assumes great risk giving one person nearly sole responsibility for making a $200 million movie. But a single vision is powerful and provides continuity. It tells a story. By contrast, some of the most notorious Hollywood films were made by committee, when too many people worked on the script or too many decision-makers input on the filming or editing.
Are the great novels written by committee? No. They're great works of individuals or, occasionally, a few people. True, for non-fiction, multiple authors typically write scientific papers, but each offers a different area of expertise—and there is still an editor who molds the writing; right, typically one person.
In a newsroom, a bunch of editors and reporters might discuss stories for the next day's newspaper. While the process is collaborative, the outcome is not. Just a few people, perhaps one, makes the final decision on what stories will go on the front page. Most certainly, it's not a collaborative decision among tens of thousands of readers. Where readers get their say is indirect. Most news sites feature a column with most-read stories.
Nor are great works of art collaborations. They express the characters of individuals. Same applies to architecture, fashion or industrial design. Typically the best products come from one, sometimes a few, but rarely many.
One of my favorite blog posts on product design is nearly 3 years old. In "Don't give in to feature demands," Kathy Sierra rightly writes:
The more successful the product or service is, the stronger the pressure to give in to user requests. The more users you have, the more diverse the requests. One user's must-have-or-else feature is another user's deal-killer. And the more popular your product or service is, the more those requests start turning into demands and ultimatums, and finally very harsh criticisms.
The worst thing we can do is give in. But as the requests/demands and criticisms become louder and angrier, the harder it is to resist the siren call—"But if we just added this one thing, these guys would ease up." But when we've blended all the colors into one muddy blob, then nobody hates us, and nobody is delighted, excited, or turned on by what we do. We become mediocre. Usually the worst place to be.
By the way, Microsoft gives in, which I assert is the major reason why product design is so mediocre. In February, I scolded Microsoft for letting beta testers drive Windows 7's user interface design, particularly so damn late in the development process. On Friday the 13th, Microsoft did something unlucky: Reveal even more Windows 7 UI changes in response to customer feedback. Worse, Microsoft is now letting outsiders determine Windows Mobile UI design. Last week, the company revealed that the honeycomb has been removed from the v6.5 software—in response to feedback, of course.
Earth to Microsoft: Close down the feedback loop. There's so much of it, you can't hear yourself think.
Dare to Be Wrong
I usually agree with Microsoft's Dare Obasanjo. But not today. On Saturday, he blogged about the controversial Facebook design: "The question then is whether the new Facebook is an example of understanding your customers better than they understand themselves or is truly a mistake?" Dare, like other critics of the redesign, likened it to Twitter. Dare continues:
The expectations around how user relationships were created on Twitter are totally different from how they were on Facebook. On Twitter, users explicitly decide as part of following someone that they want all of the person's tweets in their stream. ... Somewhere along the line, it seems the folks at Facebook didn't internalize this fundamental difference in the social context that differentiates user to user relationships on Twitter versus Facebook. This to me is a big mistake.
It's no mistake, Dare. Mark and his UI designers aren't imitating Twitter at all. Over at TechCrunch, Steve Gillmor offered a better analysis than Dare. Steve blogged yesterday: "Facebook is not copying Twitter; it's copying FriendFeed, who originally copied Twitter." Friendfeed is a compelling aggregator, by the way.
Here's the problem with Facebook. Simply put: It's too big. As such, there is simply too much information coming at people on Facebook and from too many other online services, Twitter among them. The redesigned Facebook UI condenses all those activities—status updates, photo albums, Wall posts, etc.—into a more streamlined presentation. As Steve rightly observes, in principle: "We've all seen the advantages of a single stream of information, whether it's email and then IM as Gmail pioneered, or email and IM and micromessages as is being pioneered right now."
Facebook could be tempted, like Microsoft, to change for fear of losing customers. Yeah, how many? Steve asks:
Why would Facebook users leave? They'd have to have a reason, another better service that provides what they apparently feel is lost by the news stream reworking. Certainly not Twitter, the counter-metaphor that is allegedly causing the trouble. Then who? MySpace? Open Social? Windows Live? Why? The problem with Dare's thesis is that there's no motivation to leave something that continues to provide the fundamental service, phone book. The devil you know ...
This is good advice to Microsoft, which will continue to design mediocre products as long as the masses have their say.
Users Don't Know What They Want
As for Mark and Facebook, my advice is simple: Stay the course. You won't lose enough users to worry about. Your responsibility is to build a successful business, to make Facebook a profitable enterprise.
On Saturday, Robert Scoble blogged that reaction to the redesign is business as usual: "Facebook has always pissed off its users."
Robert lays out seven sensible stages to Facebook's business development. He writes: "Phase 5 is known as when Facebook is really going to find its business model. This is why Mark Zuckerberg is absolutely correct to say he can't listen to people who wants Facebook to get stuck in Phase Four."
As a business, Facebook is still a work in process. From one perspective, the users are the business. But do they really know what's good for them? No. Did the nearly 200 million people using Facebook today know they would want or need it five years ago? Every great invention started with one or a few but never many. Every great invention was disruptive, as Facebook is today. The point: People usually don't know what they want, if for no other reason than it doesn't yet exist.
"Zuckerberg is not listening to you because you don't get how Facebook is going to make billions," Robert asserts. "Zuckerberg is right. He shouldn't start listening to his users now." Robert is unequivocally right.
[Please send your tips or rumors to watchtips at gmail.com.]
Comments (36)
I am not a Facebook'er but I thought that the new design was all about killing off Twitter rather than making the users happy?
"Phase 5 is known as when Facebook is really going to find its business model."
They have a plan to make money? I thought it was just a VC sink? It is funny that their recent redesign is to copy Twitter, yet neither of them knows how to make money. They tried selling their users to their advertisers, but that didn't work.
If they charge for the service then they might make money, but they will not have as much popularity so VC companies can't look at them and say 'wow, they are going to make billions based on how many free users they have'.
If Mark Suckerburg has a good business plan, he is certainly keeping it to himself. Maybe he is running some sort of 'Brewsters Millions' game between him and his rich mates.
Posted by billybob | March 23, 2009 2:33 PM
Well, I for one am appalled at how Facebook rips off its loyal users and shows no concern for the money these people give Facebook.
After all, I pay $0.00 a year to use Facebook. I want to get my money's worth!
By the way, I don't really value my privacy so I feel like using all of those valuable applications on Facebook.
Posted by Centerfield13 | March 23, 2009 3:14 PM
Well, I for one am appalled at how Facebook rips off its loyal users and shows no concern for the money these people give Facebook.
After all, I pay $0.00 a year to use Facebook. I want to get my money's worth!
By the way, I don't really value my privacy so I feel like using all of those valuable applications on Facebook.
Posted by Centerfield13 | March 23, 2009 3:14 PM
Right Joe.
FaceBook should just ignore the vast majority of it's users and stick with their guns. It's not like they have any competition.
Oh wait.... they do?
What you putting in your coffee man?
Posted by Massive Quasars | March 23, 2009 3:16 PM
I was wondering what the hell this has to do with Microsoft until I got to the bottom of the article. (nice placement....not.)
Joe let's for a moment ignore the fact that the UI changes were GOOD ones, and the fact that the 6.1 mobile UI sucks more wind that a factory full of hoover uprights.....
Maybe actual USERS can get things right ocasionally.
Just saying.
Posted by CC.Torment | March 23, 2009 3:22 PM
@Centerfield13
By the way, I don't really value my privacy so I feel like using all of those valuable applications on Facebook.
_____________________________
Any hot butt Nekkid pix of you on facebook then?
Waitasec....Centerfield.... not Centerfold.
Dammit.
Posted by CC.Torment | March 23, 2009 3:26 PM
I think user centered design is more about observing users work and talking to many users. Then its the product manager's job to take all that information along with strategic goals and competitive analysis to form the plan, usually in the form of some sort of Market Requirements Document.
Suspect this attitude shows more that Facebook has a poor product management department. MS certainly has a poor PM department which usually just want more DRM and Genuine Advantage.
Posted by smist08 | March 23, 2009 3:57 PM
Well some people will be unhappy with whatever Microsoft does. If they don't accept user's feedback, they will take the blame, and if they do what user's want, they will again take the blame. Microsoft did a smart thing on win7, by letting users participate, in some sense, in the UI.
Posted by evan | March 23, 2009 4:02 PM
BTW, the worst thing is not that users have a saying on how they prefer the UI, the worst is that the EU and Microsoft competitors get to decide what can be in and what has to be left out of the OS.
And BTW again, Facebook's new UI sucks big time. Users are right.
Posted by evan | March 23, 2009 4:12 PM
"Microsoft did a smart thing on win7, by letting users participate, in some sense, in the UI."
They did? How?
From what I saw, it was presented as the new thing and the only user feedback was in the form of bug reports which get closed (Just like the IE method of user feedback). A lot of people think that the icons only mode in the new taskbar is a bad mistake, yet MS ignores them.
So how did users participate and what was the outcome of that participation? Just releasing a beta is not participation, that is just MS showing that they have something better than Vista around the corner so do not migrate to something else.
Microsoft do not listen to users, they look at the profits of other companies and then use that as the basis for their strategy. Whoever makes the most money gets copied. Facebook seems to have a similar model, except their plan relies on number of users not amount of profit.
If they listened to the cries and screams of users, they would have fixed the malware problem by now. They fixed spam in 2006 after they found out that users did not like it, why not malware?
Posted by billybob | March 23, 2009 4:16 PM
POOOOOOP!!!!
Posted by john | March 23, 2009 4:49 PM
@billybob:
Once again you are right on the mark here. Nobody cried out for Microsoft to change the IU. They done this cosmetic UI changes just to try to show this is a new OS, and not ViSta. In fact, the only complaints about the UI in Vista, was that it was full of meaningless changes and name changes from XP. The great strength of XP was that the UI had basically not been greatly changed since 95. Users knew where to find stuff, and how to work the UI. So in point of fact, Microsoft did not learn anything from making all those UI changes in Vista, and has gone ahead and done the same thing in Vista2 (Seven).
Billybob says: "If they listened to the cries and screams of users, they would have fixed the malware problem by now."
How right you are.
Posted by chips b malroy | March 23, 2009 4:55 PM
The Facebook UI changes assume that users want or need their friends' information stream to look like twitter, where you have an all or nothing approach - put up with everything your friends say, or stop following them.
So now if a few of my friends and family want to frak chickens, then there is nothing you can do to stop that showing on your homepage short of killing of ALL news from them. If they want to use an application you've blocked, that will all show up too (and there's NO filter for that).
The last FB iteration had no difficulty with presenting "status updates, photo albums, Wall posts" and also letting you have a static set of links to upcoming events. Now you cannot see ANY events unless you have one event happening within 24 hours. Oh and because FB hasn't fixed it's several-year-old timezone bugs, if you're in countries forward of the US timewise (most of the world) you're not even going to see today's events until yesterday!!
Posted by Mike | March 23, 2009 5:26 PM
The Facebook UI changes assume that users want or need their friends' information stream to look like twitter, where you have an all or nothing approach - put up with everything your friends say, or stop following them.
So now if a few of my friends and family want to frak chickens, then there is nothing you can do to stop that showing on your homepage short of killing of ALL news from them.
Highlights: If they want to use an application you've blocked, that will all show up too (and there's NO filter for that). Highlights also show out of time order now (unlike previous iterations) so unless you scan that list you're likely to miss those items which might be of interest.
The last FB iteration had no difficulty with presenting "status updates, photo albums, Wall posts" and also letting you have a static set of links to upcoming events. Now you cannot see ANY events unless you have one event happening within 24 hours. Oh and because FB hasn't fixed it's several-year-old timezone bugs, if you're in countries forward of the US timewise (most of the world) you're not even going to see today's events until yesterday!!
Posted by Mike | March 23, 2009 5:30 PM
Firstly, i agree - facebook should create their site however they think is best. I happen to think that not just design by committee is bad, but yes, design is one of the things that shrivels and dies by committee.
Secondly and most importantly - why in gods name would you put up a poll to amplify peoples initial misgivings. Most people need to be told what they like and dislike and when there's a millions to coupla-thousands poll staring in their face saying "DON'T LIKE THIS, IT'S CRAP" then that's exactly what they'll do.
Posted by whatever | March 23, 2009 6:33 PM
I think user centered design is more about observing users work and talking to many users. Then its the product manager's job to take all that information along with strategic goals and competitive analysis to form the plan, usually in the form of some sort of Market Requirements Document.
Suspect this attitude shows more that Facebook has a poor product management department. MS certainly has a poor PM department which usually just want more DRM and Genuine Advantage.
Posted by smist08 | March 23, 2009 6:39 PM
There has got to be some middle ground between not listening to your users and doing whatever they say.
Microsoft gets criticized for not innovating, but when they try and make innovating changes to the UI people get upset. The U in UI stands for User, that doesn't mean the user designs it, but what it does mean is that the people who do design it need to understand how the users will use it and feedback is part of that. So whether or not I like the MS UI changes aside, I would think that taking user feedback and then making your own judgments concerning what to add/delete from the design is what we would want a company to do. What's the problem with that?(once again the concept not the actual MS implementation)
Frankly FB needs more user customization features, they don't need to be MySpace but then again I think they can provide users with some degree of freedom without destroying usability or plunging into mediocrity.
Posted by JMB | March 23, 2009 8:30 PM
The new Facebook UI reduces my ability to filter out cruft and focus on the information I want to see, and generally makes Facebook less useful to me. I'm definitely spending less time on Facebook now than before the UI change.
How's that good for Facebook?
Zuckerberg's attitude - I'm 24 and I know best! F**k the users, what do they know?! - and counter-productive UI changes merely set the stage for "the next Facebook". Facebook is not The Answer, it's just the best that's available today.
I hope tomorrow brings something better, because I'm NOT a happy Facebook user, and I'm ready to change. Just like Mark intended me to.
Posted by Peter | March 23, 2009 9:01 PM
We'll see how "right" Zuckerberg is when everyone ditches facebook in favor of a better networking site. It's be a loss for him, and no loss what-so-ever for ex facebook users.
Posted by Ryan | March 23, 2009 9:23 PM
We'll see how "right" Zuckerberg is when everyone ditches facebook in favor of a better networking site. It's be a loss for him, and no loss what-so-ever for ex facebook users.
Posted by Ryan | March 23, 2009 9:24 PM
Peter: +1
While individuals and teams get to decide the course of a product, they have notorious blindspots (I'm sure anyone here can run through the Jobs, Gates et al examples) that are only overcome through cajoling of customers or more-in-touch members of their organisations.
I look at my own experiences on the Win7 beta (and many many betas before that) - even instrumented data does not capture the way that your instrumented app interacts with others in your personal system to accomplish your ends. Possibly you're using other apps to get around flaws in the app under (re-)development.
If Facebook is "too big" then homogenising every action that passes through it is not the solution. If anything it's an act of giving up on the unique or the particular.
Analogy: There's a billion planets in this galaxy and Earth is but one of them; you may have a good personal model of Earth, but let's just pretend it's just a spherical satellite.
Posted by Mike | March 24, 2009 1:05 AM
Join the "Facebook, Bring Back the Live Feed" group:
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=57945102893
Posted by Kevin | March 24, 2009 1:45 AM
Joe i added you on Facebook :P
Posted by puppet | March 24, 2009 1:50 AM
Joe i added you on Facebook :P
Posted by puppet | March 24, 2009 1:53 AM
The difference between software and movies is that the average movie consumer passively experiences the product on about 1.000001 occasions; whereas the software consumer will interactively experience the product on perhaps 1,000's of occasions; anyone who would compare the two must be in cuckoo land.
Once again the author demonstrates why he holds a job as a mediocre hack, rather than a job that would require even a modicum of analysis.
I'm not a facebooker, so I can't comment on its changes, but I'd like to know why it's being discussed on this blog - maybe Bull-Mars told Joe that he's thinking of buying it.
Posted by RightPaddock | March 24, 2009 2:08 AM
The difference between software and movies is that the average movie consumer passively experiences the product on about 1.000001 occasions; whereas the software consumer will interactively experience the product on perhaps 1,000's of occasions; anyone who would compare the two must be in cuckoo land.
Once again the author demonstrates why he holds a job as a mediocre hack, rather than a job that would require even a modicum of analysis.
I'm not a facebooker, so I can't comment on its changes, but I'd like to know why it's being discussed on this blog - maybe Bull-Mars told Joe that he's thinking of buying it.
Posted by RightPaddock | March 24, 2009 2:10 AM
The difference between software and movies is that the average movie consumer passively experiences the product on about 1.000001 occasions; whereas the software consumer will interactively experience the product on perhaps 1,000's of occasions; anyone who would compare the two must be in cuckoo land.
Once again the author demonstrates why he holds a job as a mediocre hack, rather than a job that would require even a modicum of analysis.
I'm not a facebooker, so I can't comment on its changes, but I'd like to know why it's being discussed on this blog - maybe Bull-Mars told Joe that he's thinking of buying it.
Posted by RightPaddock | March 24, 2009 2:12 AM
The difference between software and movies is that the average movie consumer passively experiences the product on about 1.000001 occasions; whereas the software consumer will interactively experience the product on perhaps 1,000's of occasions; anyone who would compare the two must be in cuckoo land.
Once again the author demonstrates why he holds a job as a mediocre hack, rather than a job that would require even a modicum of analysis.
I'm not a facebooker, so I can't comment on its changes, but I'd like to know why it's being discussed on this blog - maybe Bull-Mars told Joe that he's thinking of buying it.
Posted by RightPaddock | March 24, 2009 2:15 AM
The difference between software and movies is that the average movie consumer passively experiences the product on about 1.000001 occasions; whereas the software consumer will interactively experience the product on perhaps 1,000's of occasions; anyone who would compare the two must be in cuckoo land.
Once again the author demonstrates why he holds a job as a mediocre hack, rather than a job that would require even a modicum of analysis.
I'm not a facebooker, so I can't comment on its changes, but I'd like to know why it's being discussed on this blog - maybe Bull-Mars told Joe that he's thinking of buying it.
Posted by RightPaddock | March 24, 2009 2:17 AM
Id like to know how in hell does Microsoft even do their design analysis without user input. Correct design specification starts with user input, didnt I did lots of user interviews just for my College assignments because thats how you get data to analyse for a projects scope, among other things?
Without users there is no need for software , so what is this junk about only one person designs programs? Junk Science?
Joe I really think your on crack.
Posted by koppyPoppy | March 24, 2009 7:04 AM
They take user feedback via special hidden tools. You often hear them saying things like 'our users have on average 3 applications open at once', 'user metrics show that 90% of people only have 1 tab open in their browser'.
Normally it is an excuse for some poor performance though. I think the Starter Edition 'features' are a result of this unintentional feedback.
Posted by billybob | March 24, 2009 8:01 AM
Facebook's redesign is a disaster. Period. All this user outrage isn't just a handful of vocal luddites objecting to change just because it's change; the redesign made the critical usability error of robbing facebook users of the ability to control their experience ... the very thing the last redesign made great strides in enabling.
This smacks of a marketing freakout. Someone at fb got all threatened by Twitter, and decided that WE MUST MAKE FACEBOOK JUST LIKE TWITTER. And in doing so, they forgot 3 crucial things.
1) Facebook and Twitter have very different content
2) Facebook and Twitter users have different goals
3) Facebook and Twitter are primarily utilized on different platforms
Facebook attempted to "fix" something that wasn't broken, and in doing so, broke something they may not be able to fix - their users' faith in facebook to provide them with a consistent, customizable, and usable way to share their content with their friends and family.
Now, what used to be a well-organized, easy to navigate social networking site has become a chaotic stream-of-consciousness wall of noise. The latest update from my favorite TV show gets the same priority as the photo of my kid that my husband just posted. Posts from people I haven't seen in 20 years push down posts from my best friends. Facebook no longer gives me the control to prioritize the content I care about most, nor can I segregate fan pages from friends.
And with 300+ friends and over 100 fan pages, the list moves so quickly that I miss a lot more stuff that I'm interested in, simply because there's so much more clutter in my feed - and because I can't tell facebook to prioritize content that my family and closest friends post.
My time spent on facebook has diminished significantly since the redesign, and will probably continue to decline, simply because it's exhausting trying to weed through the haystack to find the needles. And that means facebook will serve me less ads, and ultimately get less revenue. I'll also probably pare back my fan page and group subscriptions considerably to reduce the noise, giving those people, products, and businesses less of a reason to spend their marketing dollars reaching me on facebook.
Multiply all that by 175,000,000, and perhaps THAT will be what incents facebook to finally undo the redesign, even if they can't undo all the damage they've done to their users' trust in their product.
Posted by Kara | March 24, 2009 10:53 AM
I agree - a strong single vision can cut through all the clutter of committee. But just because it can, and you point out some examples of where it succeeds, doesn't mean it must. Waterworld? And probably many many others that were unsuccessful enough to not even get any attention.
I'm one of the unhappy facebook users. I don't like the changes, but I gave it some time and played with the interface to give it a good chance. I'm one of the users who liked the last set of changes that came through.
And unfortunately you're also correct about me leaving. I've built a network, and have access through iPhone, and stay in touch with many people and so will not leave. But I do have a brand new twitter account and have refreshed my Myspace...
Posted by Adam | March 24, 2009 11:09 PM
Yes, Joe it's wrong to listen to users.
The current vote on the new facebook layout:
79,971 (Yes like it)
1,229,461 (No don't like it)
http://apps.facebook.com/layoutvote/
Obviously over 1.2 million facebook users don't have a clue.
Posted by Gray | March 25, 2009 12:11 AM
Yes, Joe it's wrong to listen to users.
The current vote on the new facebook layout:
79,971 (Yes like it)
1,229,461 (No don't like it)
http://apps.facebook.com/layoutvote/
Obviously over 1.2 million facebook users don't have a clue.
Posted by Gray | March 25, 2009 12:12 AM
This is not the 1st time that Mark Zuckerberg gets himself entangled with a controversial situation. Remember 'TheFacebook.com Trademark Infringement' hullabaloo? He got through it; he'll get through this one. :D
Posted by rama | April 18, 2009 10:32 PM