If Microsoft Designed Facebook

About five or six years ago, before Microsoft decided they wanted a slice of the portable MP3 player pie and introduced the Zune, a video called “Microsoft Re-Designs the iPod Packaging” made the rounds of the Internettubes.

At the time, I was running a small consulting firm that shared office space with an advertising and design company, who was also my biggest client. I passed the video around the office, and it got quite a few chuckles. It’s spot-on what was, back then, Microsoft’s biggest marketing weakness: a colossal, sometimes hilarious, and always hamfisted incompetence in all matters of design. (Steve Jobs is reported to have once remarked “t’s not that Microsoft keeps stealing our ideas, it’s that they’re so ugly!)”

If you haven’t seen the video, it’s worth a look and a chuckle or two, even though it’s a bit outdated.

But I didn’t come here to talk about Microsoft. I came here to talk about Facebook.


Apparently, Facebook introduced a new design change today. I didn’t actually notice until someone called me up and asked my opinion on it; I rarely use Facebook. For the most part, it’s just a repository for my Twitter nattering. I hear it’s a big deal in some quarters, though, so I wandered over to take a look.

And my goodness, have they got things wrong.

Now, Facebook is ugly. Facebook has always been ugly. Most Web 2.0 properties are ugly. Web programmers, by and large, don’t understand design (or user interface), and like almost all computer people everywhere, they figure that anything that they don’t understand is not worth understanding, so they have contempt for design as well. To a Web 2.0 programming guru, design means making a pale blue banner with the name of the Web site and a line drawing of a logo or an animal or something on it and slapping it at the top of the page.

That’s not entirely the fault of the programmers, of course; the basic, fundamental structure of CSS discourages good design, just by making it more of a pain in the ass than it really needs to be. You can do good design in CSS, if you’re the sort of person who doesn’t mind doing linear algebra in your head while walking a tightrope stretched across the Grand Canyon with no net, and you don’t mind that it won’t render in Internet Explorer anyway…but I digress. Where was I again?

Oh, yeah. Facebook.

So. Facebook is a business, and a profitable one. Everything about it, from the back-end infrastructure to the HTML that appears on the home page, is about making money. That means that any analysis of anything they do, including changing their design, needs to be done through the lens of how it benefits Facebook financially. And the new design is clearly intended to do that.

Unfortunately, they take the same approach as Microsoft: throw everything that might make money (Third-party endorsements! Bullet points! Big colorful discount offers!) at the wall and see what sticks. Each individual design decision, by itself, has a financial goal…but the end result is a mess.

Good design is worth money, too. People gravitate toward it–and here’s an important bit–even if they don’t understand it. There are a lot of folks who hate Apple, but their design strategy works.

And the evidence is written all over the Web 1.0 wreckage. Take Yahoo’s home page (please!). Yahoo, desperate for money, decided to keep packing crap onto the home page. News, video ads, horoscopes, music, movie trailers…each element, by itself, either directly or indirectly brings in money.

Yet Yahoos proverbial clock has well and truly been cleaned by Google, whose home page is Spartan in its simplicity, and yet who makes money faster than the U.S. Mint can print it.

Design matters. Today’s Facebook looks like a social networking site designed by Microsoft in 2005, only creepier.


For me, it’s the creepiness factor that really does it.

I’m used to Web 2.0 being ugly. I’m resigned to it. Examples of beautiful Web 2.0 design are about as thin on the ground as snowmen in the Bahamas, and on some level I’ve simply accepted that and moved on.

But the new Facebook design? It’s like someone took Microsoft’s aesthetic and combined with with Google’s tentacular creepiness, and put the result in one place.

In the past, my Facebook wall was a chronology of what was going on in my friends’ lives. Now, I don’t answer most Facebook friends requests, unless they come from folks I know to one degree or another, and apparently that’s a bit unusual. But my Wall was useful; I could glance at it and see, roughly, what was going on in more or less chronological order, and that seemed like it worked just fine.

But now? The “top posts” on my wall come from Facebook’s attempt to understand me and my interests, and that’s a bit freaky. “Hmm, I wonder what Franklin might be interested in today? Let’s see if we can tease that out and then show him what we think he’ll want to see.”

It’s as if a stalker camped out on my doorstep, went through my garbage, read my mail, followed me around town, poured over my grocery receipts, made detailed lists of everyone I spoke to and when…

…all for the purpose of cutting up and rearranging my newspaper so that the articles he thought I’d like the best were on top.

So that, y’know, I would buy his newspaper.

Creepy.

And it gets creepier when I look at Facebook’s suggestions for my “close friends” list. Facebook not only wants, in its particularly stalkeriffic way, to know what sorts of subjects interest me, it also wants to know who my REAL best friends are. And not content just to ask me, it…makes suggestions.

Suggestions that world-class supercomputing infrastructure has been brought to bear on. Suggestions that involve analyzing every little telltale crumb of information I let it have.

Google, to be fair, is just as creepifyingly stalkeriffic as Facebook; it’s just (slightly) less in my face about it. Google stalks me to know what sorts of ads to present to my eyeballs; Facebook stalks me to make things easier for me.

Thanks, Mark “The Age of Privacy is Over” Zuckerberg. At least you’re refreshing in one sense; you’re one of the few business bigwigs who actually puts his words into action.


Since I started this with a video, it’s reasonable to end it with a video. It shows Steve Jobs, until recently the CEO of one of the most financially successful businesses in history, responding to an openly insulting question about his return to Apple with grace and dignity. Granted, he’s basically a sociopath, but the interesting bit is when he talks about prioritizing user experience over technical faffery. He’s another of the few business leaders who practices what he preaches, and I think the example of Apple Computer shows that priortizing design and user experience can be profitable too.

“You’ve got to start with the customer’s experience and work backwards from that.”

36 thoughts on “If Microsoft Designed Facebook

  1. Just now seeing the new Facebook layout myself I am sooooo glad I don’t use it for anything but playing flash games when I’m bored. I’m not into being connected with everyone and their cat on the interwebs so Facebook creeps me out anyway. I like having a bit of non-connected peace in my life. I have enough ways to reach me, by various email, instant message, and a cell phone, that I don’t need old high school pals finding me on Facebook, too.

    My best to you and yours. <3

  2. Just now seeing the new Facebook layout myself I am sooooo glad I don’t use it for anything but playing flash games when I’m bored. I’m not into being connected with everyone and their cat on the interwebs so Facebook creeps me out anyway. I like having a bit of non-connected peace in my life. I have enough ways to reach me, by various email, instant message, and a cell phone, that I don’t need old high school pals finding me on Facebook, too.

    My best to you and yours. <3

  3. Google’s home page was simple. They’ve been hurling design overboard at an accelerating rate for the last few years, and their interfaces have gotten so bad that I’ve gone back to using Yahoo/Bing for search.

  4. Google’s home page was simple. They’ve been hurling design overboard at an accelerating rate for the last few years, and their interfaces have gotten so bad that I’ve gone back to using Yahoo/Bing for search.

  5. Fantastic analysis of Web evolution and social-networking. I’ve gotten more Google+ “circle” requests since Facebook decided to get uber-creepy than I had in my circles before. I use Facebook because so many people do, and will drop it as soon as they’re all over on G+. And I’ll drop G+ as soon as the next thing offers us networking with less creepiness. And so on.

    Thing is, we’re getting a lot of value for free. If you pay for something, you expect privacy, but who pays for social networking? WE ALL DO – with our exposed privacy.

  6. Fantastic analysis of Web evolution and social-networking. I’ve gotten more Google+ “circle” requests since Facebook decided to get uber-creepy than I had in my circles before. I use Facebook because so many people do, and will drop it as soon as they’re all over on G+. And I’ll drop G+ as soon as the next thing offers us networking with less creepiness. And so on.

    Thing is, we’re getting a lot of value for free. If you pay for something, you expect privacy, but who pays for social networking? WE ALL DO – with our exposed privacy.

  7. “But now? The “top posts” on my wall come from Facebook’s attempt to understand me and my interests, and that’s a bit freaky.”

    the only thing that’s changed is aesthetics. unless you use custom lists, the posts you see are chosen by facebook’s algorithms.

    similarly, the posts other people see from you are chosen by facebook’s algorithms. if you interact with someone regularly, or they visit your page regularly, your updates will appear in top news. if you don’t talk to them via facebook very often, and they don’t visit your facebook page very often, other people’s updates will appear instead of your updates, regardless of whether theirs are “i ate a sandwich” and yours are interesting links.

    the algorithm also includes how many people visit a facebook page in general. so for example, i have ~880 facebook friends, and people visit my page directly pretty frequently. so my updates show up more often in top news, regardless of whether my updates are better or not.

    when google+ came out, people got all excited about circles. facebook already had the same functionality. it’s just that most people didn’t know that the lists feature existed and didn’t use it. it wasn’t very user-friendly. facebook took the ‘acquaintances’, etc. concept from google+ and tried to implement it automatically to make lists easier to use.

    (i’m getting a degree in human-computer interaction, so i read a lot of 50+ page research papers about facebook and wikipedia behavior and various other things that typically cause people’s eyes to glaze over 😉

  8. “But now? The “top posts” on my wall come from Facebook’s attempt to understand me and my interests, and that’s a bit freaky.”

    the only thing that’s changed is aesthetics. unless you use custom lists, the posts you see are chosen by facebook’s algorithms.

    similarly, the posts other people see from you are chosen by facebook’s algorithms. if you interact with someone regularly, or they visit your page regularly, your updates will appear in top news. if you don’t talk to them via facebook very often, and they don’t visit your facebook page very often, other people’s updates will appear instead of your updates, regardless of whether theirs are “i ate a sandwich” and yours are interesting links.

    the algorithm also includes how many people visit a facebook page in general. so for example, i have ~880 facebook friends, and people visit my page directly pretty frequently. so my updates show up more often in top news, regardless of whether my updates are better or not.

    when google+ came out, people got all excited about circles. facebook already had the same functionality. it’s just that most people didn’t know that the lists feature existed and didn’t use it. it wasn’t very user-friendly. facebook took the ‘acquaintances’, etc. concept from google+ and tried to implement it automatically to make lists easier to use.

    (i’m getting a degree in human-computer interaction, so i read a lot of 50+ page research papers about facebook and wikipedia behavior and various other things that typically cause people’s eyes to glaze over 😉

  9. I went to this cave in 2004 and had the exact same set of reactions. It was good to see “natural” caves again after that horrible experience.

  10. I went to this cave in 2004 and had the exact same set of reactions. It was good to see “natural” caves again after that horrible experience.

  11. Curse you Franklin! Our whole household is now obsessed with adorable snuggly puppiness! I grew up with poodles. Objectively I must say they are the most awesome dog in the world. And to the commenter above who mentioned allergies, they are hypoallergenic. That’s why my family always had them.

  12. Curse you Franklin! Our whole household is now obsessed with adorable snuggly puppiness! I grew up with poodles. Objectively I must say they are the most awesome dog in the world. And to the commenter above who mentioned allergies, they are hypoallergenic. That’s why my family always had them.

  13. The physical object is scarce.

    At the moment.

    What happens when we all have fabrication machines in our basements and can produce a physical object from a computer file? That’s not theoretical, hobbyists like me are doing this now with sub-$1,000 machines. What does it mean for people who are mechanical engineers, architects, designers, and everybody else?

    People who design things deserve to be compensated for their work. The question is how do we create a system that allows those who make their living designing things (be it a song, a movie, a plastic trinket, or a house) in a society where everything can be effortlessly copied?

  14. The physical object is scarce.

    At the moment.

    What happens when we all have fabrication machines in our basements and can produce a physical object from a computer file? That’s not theoretical, hobbyists like me are doing this now with sub-$1,000 machines. What does it mean for people who are mechanical engineers, architects, designers, and everybody else?

    People who design things deserve to be compensated for their work. The question is how do we create a system that allows those who make their living designing things (be it a song, a movie, a plastic trinket, or a house) in a society where everything can be effortlessly copied?

  15. I hate the whole “we’re not allowed to show our videos outside of the USofA” bullshit. :/ You got a Youtube link to that?

  16. I hate the whole “we’re not allowed to show our videos outside of the USofA” bullshit. :/ You got a Youtube link to that?

  17. Thank You!

    Any way to get a version of the smaller one at 150×150. Facebook screws up the bumper sticker and thinks the 100×100 is too small and wont let me use it?

  18. Thank You!

    Any way to get a version of the smaller one at 150×150. Facebook screws up the bumper sticker and thinks the 100×100 is too small and wont let me use it?

  19. What about Fanlatio…. The unexplained love devoted to a fictional character or story line such as Star Trek or Felicia Day? 😉

  20. What about Fanlatio…. The unexplained love devoted to a fictional character or story line such as Star Trek or Felicia Day? 😉

  21. Notes:
    That church/school compound has been in the news. It’s got private owners, they’re a religious family who’ll only sell it to a Christian-owned organization who’s willing to turn it in to a madrassa full time Christian school indoctrinating educating Christian youth in the ways of the Lord.
    So far no one who meets their standards & passes their background checks has met approval.

    Stryper was the best known but not the ONLY band of that ilk, I know of a few others & a bit of Google found this http://www.metalforjesus.org/history.htm which lists all the ones I’ve heard of & then some.

  22. Notes:
    That church/school compound has been in the news. It’s got private owners, they’re a religious family who’ll only sell it to a Christian-owned organization who’s willing to turn it in to a madrassa full time Christian school indoctrinating educating Christian youth in the ways of the Lord.
    So far no one who meets their standards & passes their background checks has met approval.

    Stryper was the best known but not the ONLY band of that ilk, I know of a few others & a bit of Google found this http://www.metalforjesus.org/history.htm which lists all the ones I’ve heard of & then some.

  23. *

    This is an excellent essay.

    I’ve been contemplating the Culture books; thank you for the informative and encouraging recommendation.

  24. *

    This is an excellent essay.

    I’ve been contemplating the Culture books; thank you for the informative and encouraging recommendation.

  25. Oooo, do you have any plans to offer this as a poster? I think it would do my brains good to look at this on my wall every day, as a way to gently memorize a bit of logic….

  26. Oooo, do you have any plans to offer this as a poster? I think it would do my brains good to look at this on my wall every day, as a way to gently memorize a bit of logic….

  27. Dyads and binary models don’t work for me, either. That’s one of the reasons Khall and I work so well together. I’m fond of saying we’re opposite sides of the same coin, which is a kind of dyad, but I mean more that we’re cut from the same cloth. If I believed in dyads I would be getting back with my ex but he comes with a fiance. When I enter a relationship with him I enter one with her, as has been articulated. I can’t keep my relationship with him separate from her enough to make it a healthy relationship. It’s like relationship soup. A spoiled ingredient will make the whole soup taste bad, or at least give you a sense that something isn’t quite right.

  28. Dyads and binary models don’t work for me, either. That’s one of the reasons Khall and I work so well together. I’m fond of saying we’re opposite sides of the same coin, which is a kind of dyad, but I mean more that we’re cut from the same cloth. If I believed in dyads I would be getting back with my ex but he comes with a fiance. When I enter a relationship with him I enter one with her, as has been articulated. I can’t keep my relationship with him separate from her enough to make it a healthy relationship. It’s like relationship soup. A spoiled ingredient will make the whole soup taste bad, or at least give you a sense that something isn’t quite right.

  29. I make a big distinction between jealousy and envy, and I define it the same way you do, .

    I’ve dealt with both from time to time, but I’m generally much more likely to be envious than jealous — and the answer to that is sometimes “Hey, when you took your other partner out dancing, I wished I could do the same with you. Wanna go dancing sometime?” . . . and sometimes it’s “We live on different continents, so I accept, as a condition of our relationship, that I’ll never spend as much time with you as you do with your live-in partner — but since our time together is good and has been for many years, and I knew we lived on different continents when we got together, I’ll accept some envy as the price for having this relationship.”

    I almost never have the “You have X, and I don’t want you to have X” jealousy, although I’ll admit to the occasional cranky wish that someone more deserving could wind up with my health woes. (Nothing to do with relationships or poly, I should add!)

    Fear of loss is something I’ve really struggled with, though. I think I’m doing okay at this stage in my life, but it certainly took a number of years of self-work to get there. (Doesn’t help when you normally are of the belief that you shouldn’t compare partners against each other because each person is an individual, but there are *always* going to be things that almost any partner of my partners are going to be able to do that I can’t, because of my disability. So there’s the worrying-about-measuring-up thing, especially during a time of really persistent poor health.)

    Even so — I love and am loved, I’m happy and content, I’m dealing with some Life Stuff that is frustrating and disappointing, but my loves are amazing and supportive, and that’s a pretty good situation, all told.

    — A <3

  30. I make a big distinction between jealousy and envy, and I define it the same way you do, .

    I’ve dealt with both from time to time, but I’m generally much more likely to be envious than jealous — and the answer to that is sometimes “Hey, when you took your other partner out dancing, I wished I could do the same with you. Wanna go dancing sometime?” . . . and sometimes it’s “We live on different continents, so I accept, as a condition of our relationship, that I’ll never spend as much time with you as you do with your live-in partner — but since our time together is good and has been for many years, and I knew we lived on different continents when we got together, I’ll accept some envy as the price for having this relationship.”

    I almost never have the “You have X, and I don’t want you to have X” jealousy, although I’ll admit to the occasional cranky wish that someone more deserving could wind up with my health woes. (Nothing to do with relationships or poly, I should add!)

    Fear of loss is something I’ve really struggled with, though. I think I’m doing okay at this stage in my life, but it certainly took a number of years of self-work to get there. (Doesn’t help when you normally are of the belief that you shouldn’t compare partners against each other because each person is an individual, but there are *always* going to be things that almost any partner of my partners are going to be able to do that I can’t, because of my disability. So there’s the worrying-about-measuring-up thing, especially during a time of really persistent poor health.)

    Even so — I love and am loved, I’m happy and content, I’m dealing with some Life Stuff that is frustrating and disappointing, but my loves are amazing and supportive, and that’s a pretty good situation, all told.

    — A <3

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