A week ago Mark Zuckerberg was on stage talking about the future of Facebook and unveiling Facebook Graph Search. Since then thousands upon thousands of articles have been written on the subject, so why write another one?
Every single piece I’ve read, seem to either misunderstand, or not care about what makes Graph Search different. So here I go, trying to explain what Graph Search really is.
Continue reading “Everything you want to know about Facebook Graph Search”
From time to time I see big brands betting heavily on a phrase or a named function. The Windows Start button, the Facebook Like button etc.
But time and time again I see these same big brands translating the phrase… Somewhere, some person at these companies missed a fundamental part of branding: don’t change names all the time!
It doesn’t matter if these phrases are verbs such as in the “Like” button. It’s a part of your brand. If you translate your brand, you’re starting a new brand.
(image via Techcrunch)
Whenever likeminded creative people try to innovate trends emerge. Ideas give birth to ideas. As ideas keep combining in the heads of creative people everywhere some ideas become more sticky than others. I’ll document some of the trends in user experience design I predict will become the norm in 2012.
An example trend from previous years is the scroll down to refresh design. Created by Loren Brichter for his famous Tweetie iphone app it has since become the standard for refreshing feeds and lists in apps everywhere.
Example from mobile webKit build
You’ve seen them already. Open your Facebook app and look at the button in the top left corner. Tapping the button or swiping the interface from left to right opens the menu:
This background panel is always there. Neatly integrated in iOS navigation panel.
The iOS navigation panel? At the top of all iOS apps with many views is a bar that usually has two buttons on it. This bar is called the navigation bar in the iOS SDK and intended to be used like this:
Some time ago Facebook launched it’s cross platform messaging app: Facebook Messenger; the mobile stand alone app that fully integrates Facebook messaging with your cell phone. Sounds awesome right? Sadly, it’s badly broken.
I recently tweeted a designer at Facebook to ask why the UX of the app is so bad, in turn he asked me to describe what’s wrong so they can fix it. So are you listening Facebook? Great. Here’s what’s wrong with the iOS version:
Starting the app
Takes time. A lot of time. Why? There is no large graphics in use. Why does it start slower than some third party messaging or twitter apps? Short messaging on mobile devices is supposed to be fast. Loading the app for over a full second is bad user experience.
If I’d have to guess what’s wrong I’d say Facebook Messenger is loading the entire message database at startup when all the user really needs is something like the last 5 messages.
Loading and responsiveness
So the app is now loaded. Let’s start messaging! No? Unresponsive?! But why? Why is there a second load time?
This second load becomes even weirder when I start the app from a notification. The app should be loading the message I was notified about but instead it seems to load for several full seconds. Even on WiFi.
If I’d have to guess what’s wrong I’d say you’re syncing ALL the messaging data with the server…
Don’t, do, that. Ever.
Always smart load, download only the essential information to start using the app. Then download the rest in the background while the user is happily messaging away. This is critical on mobile devices.
Feedback
If even Apple, that clearly doesn’t get social at all, get’s the importance of user feedback in short messaging. And the Facebook web interface clearly shows when the other party is writing something to you… Why do you not show this information in the Messenger app? If someone starts typing, send that information. Show an indication of this in the app.
And please, don’t make my phone vibrate with every new messages when the thread is open on the screen.
Notifications
Notifications on iOS are a bit strange. They don’t sync between iPhone and iPad and the app can’t receive any data from the notification. So some odd behavior is simply inescapable. However, most of the odd behavior with notifications from Facebook’s Messenger app have nothing to do with that.
The main problem is that notifications aren’t consistent between mobile app and web. As a matter of fact I haven’t even been able to understand what triggers mobile notifications. In my tests some messenges have triggered notifications on both web and mobile while other, identical tests, have triggered only one of them. Once I even received a mobile notification while typing a response in that very thread on the web.
Notifications are hard. Really hard. But a few simple basics should at least get you of out this mess:
Do I realize that these features are more complex than I have described them here? Yes. But they’re not very complex for a product team such as the one behind Facebook.
Do I realize that Facebook usually releases features and then iterates on them to improve the user experience? Yes. But this is a web strategy. A mobile app is often, like in this case, just a good interface on top of a web service. If the interface is bad, the service is bad.
Iterate all you want on the service. But “release early, release often” is not a viable strategy for a mobile interface.
So why am I taking time to complain write all this? Because Facebook Messages, and Facebook Messenger, is a great product. It will help me organize my communication even better and have faster communications with my friends. No longer will discussions be spread through WhatsApp, iMessages, SMS, Email etc etc.
And the reason I can’t do that today is the Facebook Messenger interface. With god damn enourmous amounts of some luck this post might help Facebook create a really good Messenger app faster. Fingers crossed. Also, I’m available for hire.
Thanks to @MagnusEngdal and Sara Öhman for helping me with the testing.
Update:
Ben from the Facebook Messenger team replies with some information about the upcoming version 1.5 of the app. Early the next morning I had it and started using it. And I must say it’s a big improvement. I’ll write a follow up shortly about this new version.
Google+ is the new social network launched by Google. Despite having a track record of broken dreams and train wrecks in the social space, Google has actually managed to put together a quite compelling product.
A lot of the tech industry is claiming it really is a Facebook killer.
Here’s why it’s not
Google+ is basically a clone of Facebook. So much of the service is nearly identical that it would be silly to claim otherwise. Now this might be because Google is lazy, or it might be that Facebook has found a good way to view social information. I’m more inclined to the latter.
But similarity won’t get new users, they’ll understand Google+ easier (an important argument) but they won’t stay for that. So what stands out?
Circles, Sparks, Huddles and Hangouts
Circles are central to the Google+ experience. To share or follow anyone you have to assign them to a circle or group. The idea is that if all your friends are in groups from the start, having more control of what you share to whom is a lot simpler.
That’s a great idea. Sadly it’s really annoying and adds work for the users. Every time you post something you have to choose which circles to share with. The ones you shared with last are offered as a default. I’ll bet that most people will add most if not all their circles and then never change. The reason for this is that we don’t share if sharing is to much work. That’s why social networking took off in the first place, they made it easier to share stuff we liked. Google+ is making it harder than on Facebook. Not a compelling argument for most people.
Sparks
Sparks are topics of interest that you can follow and get all the new information on right inside Google+. This is a great idea. Having content in the social network, ready to be shared.
There is a problem. It’s basically just a Google search. So there’s very little filtration of content and hardly ever anything new. Google+ is still a beta so this could evolve to a killer feature. But for Google to invent a new type of search just for content in Google+… I don’t think that’ll happen.
Huddles
Huddles are group messaging. Yeah. Another one… And for some reason it only works on mobile devices, they don’t show up in the web interface. So basically a bit less useable than Facebook chat.
Hangout
Hangouts are amazing. Hangouts are video chatroom that you can start at any time and than jump in and out of and just talk to people. Amazing tech.
But a stupid idea. Why?
I don’t understand why companies keep dragging the video-calling, video-chatting ideas out every time they get more tech. The trend in general is moving from voice to text because it is less intrusive.
Intrusive is basically the definition of having friends looking at you while you work.
“But chat roulette was a hit!?” I hear you desperately cry. Yes it was. Because it’s for fun it was quick to just spend a half hour jumping in and out of conversations or charades with dicks random people. But do you want to do that with just your friends? Probably not.
It is however an even simpler way to have video conferencing, which inside Google must seem like the thing everyone wants to do. I’ve never met someone who would like that. But I’m sure those people will be thrilled. I’ll use it to have drinking nights with my buddies in the UK no doubt.
Summing up
So far Google+ looks like a great, clean, new social network. With absolutely nothing to make it more useable than Facebook.
The only reason people loves this product is because it says Google right there on the logo.
But we should give it the benefit of a doubt, it’s still just a beta, it might be missing features or showing us features that are far from finished.
Don’t get me wrong, I’ll still be on it. It’s just that I don’t use it at all.
