Good design from limited functionality: Facebook Lite
Miranda Capra / Usability / Web & SoftwareWhen my husband and I went home for the holidays, we got his parents on Facebook. They’re still not sure whether or not they should thank us – time will tell. But the process of explaining Facebook was much easier because we had them use Facebook Lite. This is a new version of Facebook, still in beta, that has pared the interface down to the essential features. It’s different from Facebook Mobile, which is designed for mobile phones and also has a more limited feature set, but doesn’t translate well to large-screen displays.
I’d spent a half-hour the day before making a tip sheet for the full version of Facebook. It was an annotated screenshot of the homepage explaining what everything is. Then I started running out of both room on the page and patience, and thought Facebook Lite would be perfect. Since it only has the most essential features, they are easier to find and easier to use. All of the clutter at the bottom of the page is gone, and most of the clutter on the sides as well, so it’s hard to get lost or click on the wrong thing. They’ve replaced the “What’s on your mind?” box with labeled buttons for Write, Post Photos and Post Videos so that it’s easier to see how to post items. They’ve even fixed a few things, such as renaming the confusing “Live Feed” and “News Feed” to be “All Stories” and “Top Stories”.
It reminds me of the essay I wrote for my graduate school applications. One school had a shorter requirement than the rest, so I wrote the longer version first and then trimmed it down to the short version. By the time I was done tightening up the essay and taking out the nonessentials, I liked it so much better that I sent it to all of the schools.
In software development, saying no to a feature can be difficult, but when you cut out the nonessentials what is left is simpler, more coherent, and easier to understand; without all the bells and whistles it just makes sense.
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