Here's a Facebook concept made for a world where all screens are huge, all people are gorgeous stock photo models that speak latin, and everything happened 24 minutes ago.

A lot of visual designers fall into the trap of sweating pixels while not considering content and context. If you could give them sane advice, what would you say?

To be contrarian, would this be a better redesign if it had more realistic content?

For reference, here's @IA's 2006 redesign of Facebook that uses realistic data.

cloudfront4.informationarchitects.net

Secret to making honest (and thus truly useful) redesigns:
0) Why is the thing you are redesigning the way it is. Is it that way intentionally? If yes. Stop. Else proceed.
1) What are you trying to solve? What are your goals.
2) Get as much data and context. What the users do. What solutions were tried in past, but failed. Why they failed.
3) Real content. Real content & Real content.
4) Interactions. Every single thing.
5) Why is your solution better than what exists? If all that you can answer is "it looks better" or "it just is". Something is off.
6) Traps: Check information density, information architecture between the original and new. Rarely step away from core brand - instead draw inspiration from it.

I think it really depends on his motive for the design. If this were a sketch inside the Facebook design team, no one would be up in arms about it; in fact it could lead to some great discussion. However anyone who's built a complex system from the ground up knows that once you start digging in, things change dramatically.

When designing the initial versions of Flavors.me, I had very nice polished presentation mockups, but in the back of my head I knew what would work and what wouldn't work. Once you start pulling data from 35 different api's with different character lengths unpredictable photo ratio's, you learn the limits.

I think most designers underestimate the complexity of Facebooks data...

You can have all the principles in the world (Tuhin), but I think the easiest thing is: use what you designed.

In other words, actually prototype it and see if it makes any sense.

Sorry, I mean easiest to remember, not necessarily do.

Prototyping, if an option ( factor of time, intensity of redesign, purpose of redesign -personal/portfolio/client work), then hell YES.

It's really easy to sit on the outside of something and claim you can do better. The problem is you get to work outside the real world of constraints and business.

For example, where are the ads? You know, the things that PAY for the site?

The tag line at the end of the presentation says "lets [SIC] focus on a functional and engaging user experience." But where is the actual engagement in the design? What's the functionality?

How does all this beautiful-people content get into the system to start with? It's quite a coincidence that all the picture backgrounds match the page colors. What do you get with real-life crappy photos?

Don't redesign Facebook. Show us what you can do w/your own ideas.

"where is the actual engagement in the design? What's the functionality?"

lol srsly

tuhin: yea it's a bit of a bitch to prototype and DEF easier said than done.

another good way is "show it to your mom"

Just want to say wassup to @jackzerby. Been a long time since the R/GA days.

The actual question is, what are the people writing comments on that project looking at? :)

unsolicited specs can be very cool but they're much better when they attempt to first articulate the problem they're correcting.

Otherwise you just get designer fetish. I couldn't help but think of the myspace redesign video when I saw the fb spec today:

vimeo.com

^^ cody: yes i said the exact same thing re: new myspace on news.layervault.com's posting of this redesign

cemre: i'm sure 99% of those are print designers/"ui" designers who, like cody said, get all riled up with this fetishized redesign.

has anyone tried using new.myspace.com? i couldn't handle it. i feel like it suffers from very similar problems:

- "innovative" ui (aka new for the sake of new)
- reliance on great photography
- unclear core functionality

which I guess could translate into

- don't come up with new interaction methods unless you have a good reason to, and intuitive doesn't mean swipeable (looking at you, edge swipes)
- use real data (text, photos, names)
- simplify, simplify, simplify. your UI should communicate what you want the users to do with hierarchy and copy

Pinterest, Metro/Windows8, Medium... They all use this new grid layout that has few affordances for driving the content. It all demos really well, because a demo is only judged on its visual appearance. Usage is a whole 'nother ball game.

Looks a like the new myspace, which I used for about 10 minutes, thought was very pretty and somewhat interesting but ultimately something that wasn't worth much time. Had a ton of interface issues, etc. It felt like a profile piece. I don't mind this kind of design exercise, in fact I've done a few of these in the past with the "Design Eye" series, but I feel like this wasn't treated like a "real" project at all. It's pretty, sure, but the focus seems to be on the visual, not the experience (where is mobile?), regardless of what they claim. At the end of day, it's fun to see and talk about these concepts, but they're little more than coffee table book equivalents.

This reminds me of the Dribbble mindset as well.

"Look how gorgeous this looks"
"But I can't use it..."
"Right, but look how gorgeous at looks!"

Thought you'd want to watch this drunk user testing of new MySpace:

youtube.com

Surprisingly he did quite well, though I suspect that it's skewed because they told him what to do "create a mix"/"search" because one of the biggest problems I had was it wasn't clear what the core functionality of the website was and why I should use it.

I honestly don't even think this redesign is worth talking about. It wouldn't be better with real content, because the fundamentals are just so broken.

Unsolicited redesigns like this drive me crazy. They betray a naivety for how user experience design works and are never, ever implementable.

Want to design something using Facebook as a subject? Design a new feature you'd want (show some product sense) and how it would fit into the existing framework. Or take a very specific design problem you've encountered and explain why it's a problem and propose a solution. While neither of these are very actionable either, at least you're displaying some critical thinking and not just how well you know Photoshop's blend options.

This kind of redesign is about bringing a different version, not necessarily a better one.

It's like if you ask me which car to buy, and I suggest buying a bike instead. It's not the answer you're looking for and probably not very helpful, but it just might trigger a spark that wasn't there before.

They might not be using real data, but in this case, who cares? Just remove the Facebook logo and appreciate their vision for what it is instead of complaining about what it isn't :)

But if you remove the Facebook logo, doesn't it all just become wallpaper? What's the underlying purpose for the design when it becomes a no-name design?

^^^ This. Why even bother unless the product is either based in something real or something potentially real?

Not to mention that, Facebook logo or no, the design still has poor hierarchy, unintuitive interactions, etc. abound. I honestly wasn't even judging it purely on the basis of it being a Facebook redesign. The design alone doesn't stand up, regardless of what it's based on.

It's an idealised world where all of our friends are professional photographers & parents carefully craft their babies' names to fit inside the designer's Photoshop mockup.

We might all use AdBlock in Chrome, but using AdBlock in Photoshop is cheating.

It's not real, and things that aren't real are art, not design.

"It's not real, and things that aren't real are art, not design."

What? Sorry, but disagreeing here. Just because it's poor UX/product design/doesn't rely on real data doesn't mean it's art.

Visual designers who can't, or choose not to, think about context and content should stick to making pretty icons.

An interface is merely a window to content. If you don't design your interface with real content, it's not really worth looking at. Putting pretty faces and beautiful images will make your mockup beautiful, when the reality may not be so—and seeing it not be beautiful will give you opportunity to make the content you have to work with more aesthetically pleasing.

I always mock up with real content. Real people, real names, real words.

Regardless of layout or presentation, you always have the possibility of low-quality content. Consider this: pinterest.com

Like it or not, we've got to make those images look good too.

Agreed with Justin that working with real content, or a close facsimile, is the way to go. Ideally working in the medium you're designing for as well, even if sometimes that's not always the most practical way to experiment. (I can generate fairly high-fidelity ideas in Photoshop, on paper or a whiteboard much faster than I can in code, for example.)

Sure, usability, user experience, content architecture, etc. are important. But what about style, brand, and emotion? Aren't designers allowed to work on that, too? We also need pretty icons, wallpapers, art, whatever you want to call it.

Nobody is saying this will replace Facebook tomorrow. It's just a concept, a parallel universe version of Facebook. Just because it has flaws in some domains doesn't mean it's devoid of interest or "not design".

It's just noise though, disturbing our precious, curated mental libraries. Pointless. @jon nailed it: "It's not real, and things that aren't real are art, not design." And if it's art, it's uninteresting.

"It's like if you ask me which car to buy, and I suggest buying a bike instead."

=D

It's more like if you ask me which car to buy and I recommend one that gets 500mpg, costs $4.32, drives on water, and is made of lasers and happiness. It doesn't exist, there's no trajectory/research for any aspect of my recommendation, and no car manufacturer has any plans to make such a thing. A bike, that's you telling me to use Twitter instead of FB.

And yeah, Keith, I was going to link to your 2006 SXSW Design Eye for the List Guy panel w/Ryan and Paul, that was equally fun. The difference there is you guys (especially you) were pretty humble about it, recommending there's no point in redesigning something that isn't broken, but here are a few areas that could be improved, etc.

"If it's art, it's uninteresting."

This sounds overarching. Care to elaborate?

I mean specifically, this piece of fantasy art called a facebook redesign. Not in general!

Love @justin's analogy.

To take it further, we *all love jetpacks* and flying cars and stuff, but as a hardworking industrial designer working for Ford I'm going to be upset if a sci-fi fan's hovercar concept is presented in the same context as the 2014 hatchback I'm working on.

Fuck jetpacks.

I guess it comes down to what the point of the work is. If the point of the work is to demonstrate what you can do with photoshop, then it succeeds. If the point is to show what an alternate FB interface can be, then it needs to talk about the constraints and reality of FB. I don't think it does that.

i think we're just upset because it's being messaged/communicated as something that can replace FB, instead of just a concept/vision. But even still, I think you guys are making sweeping generalizations and unfair analogies.

@jon: "as a hardworking industrial designer Ford I'm going to be upset if a sci-fi fan's hovercar concept is presented in the same context as the 2014 hatchback I'm working on."

Actually, this happens all the time. You always see blogs going like "THIS IS THE FUTURE OF BMW" when there's no way it can happen. I'm a former industrial designer, and we didn't get upset at this kind of stuff. We've always viewed it as "oh cool new concept, let's see what inspiration I can draw from it". and I think this should be the same for these kinds of concepts.

for example, yankodesign.com is basically the Dribbble of ID, and although we don't take the work on there as serious, production-ready work, many many many IDers go on here for inspiration.

Is this FB redesign concept sound product design? No. I think we can all agree that it is not.

Is creating concept design work around interfaces useless, uninteresting, "art", etc. as you are all saying? I really don't think so.

Should we help spread awareness about the actual purpose of design and the fact that this redesign does not represent real, good product design? Hell yes.

that yanko site is crazy, and i can totally see the parallels. there's no specific problem this extension plug is solving, other than that it's cool looking. easy to dismiss as "not serious design", but when approached as "a cool idea", there's some inspiration.

yankodesign.com

+1 @julius

+1 Jon and Maxwell.

Design's job is to provide targeted responses to real-world problems/opportunities. The proposed “solution” (as it is touted) does not deal with the problems of advertisements, mobile/responsive access, or real-life content. It even claims to be streamlined, when it is in fact anything but — it's like the content was projectile barfed onto a wall and then segregated into a grid. Where's the focus? Where's the streamlining?

In short: while the author clearly has some abilities in Photoshop, this isn't design. It's an artist choosing to create a tailored, idealistic vision of reality.

And while there's nothing wrong with that in and of itself, I struggle to find any sort of design value within it.

(I realise that the presentation makes some claims to responsive design, but I'm not seeing any visual evidence of it. Given the huge amount of interface bling being shown, I struggle to think the author has actually considered a responsive implementation.)

*sigh*

Did you guys really sign up as designers to simply solve problems in the most practical way possible?

I know that's always the end goal, but isn't there part of you that also wants to build something inspiring, something that just makes you go "wow"?

While I agree that ignoring usability is a bigger sin than ignoring "style" (for lack of a better word), the best designers are the ones who can merge these two aspects.

@sacha

I don't think there is any disagreement here. If adding a few boxes and diagonals to facebook is the standard for inspiration and wow factor, i guess I am just not the right person to have in this discussion. I don't mean that in a condescending way, just that perhaps at this point in life/career I think this isn't very exciting.

As an example, here are some rebrandings/redesigns that I do say "wow" about, from designers taking bold risks, having fun over the past 10 years:

Cheer's rebranding
designer-daily.com

Cadillac CTS, designed by Wayne Cherry, the industrial designer behind Opal:
en.wikipedia.org

And my favorite motion graphics designer in the whole world, redesigning Tron for the new millenium:

inventinginteractive.com

work.gmunk.com

I use these as examples because a Facebook redesign worth saying "wow" about and spending time considering is a real rethinking, an exploratory, creative effort worthy of pissing people off, making new fans, etc.

Conversely, here is something i don't say wow about

The famous AA redesign
dustincurtis.com

Yet another person on the internet with an opinion, a copy of photoshop, and a few minutes.

I hope that makes sense, and more than anything thanks for this great conversation. I am thankful for what Branch is building for us and even more thankful to be making new friends/acquaintances/intertubechatbuddies through this.

@Justin those are great examples.

"If adding a few boxes and diagonals to facebook is the standard for inspiration and wow factor, i guess I am just not the right person to have in this discussion."

Again, not defending this particular design, but many people in this branch were beginning to make sweeping generalizations like how redesigns like this that don't use real data are worthless and are "art" (really don't like the use of art, but rolling with it because it was brought up).

Things like these are great because they open conversations, and if the creator is lucky enough to be receptive to constructive feedback, they grow as well. The ability to create without restrictions of reality — isn't that what we crave sometimes? Personal projects allow us that room to fuck around, whether or not it's "good design"

@Sacha I definitely see where you're coming from with this comment. We all crave to make something that makes people go "Wow!"

I'm the last person to want to bang the usability bible over someone's head, but projects like this pose a challenge for me in that they emphasise style so heavily over substance and problem-solving. And while some may find some stylistic inspiration from it (and that's great), to me this feels more like the author has given Facebook a new set of clothes to cover up its bulging figure, rather than addressing the root of its obesity.

@Julius Agree, it is great to see conversations like this happening — especially where is contributors manage to stay level-headed! ;)

I think many of us do indeed crave to create without realistic restrictions, and I believe that is a wonderful thing. I just don't think design is the right framework for that sort of thing. For me that falls much more into an artistic line of enquiry; I also don't think of “art” as being a negative place for work to exist, it's just different from the framework of design.

@Sacha Totally agree that visual design and "wow" are part of what makes a great solution great. But...

To strive to impress your peers, and make them go "wow" is a rookie move that leads, most often, to the people who actually have to interact with your work to go "WTF?"

I don't mean to be overly harsh, but I've seen this too many times to just let it slide. If you aim for "wow" and you can't back it up, which, frankly is 99.5% of the time, you end up with something that doesn't meet basic needs.

Keep it simple. Do what works. Don't get clever.

I didn't "sign up" to have designers faun over my cleverness. I signed up to find and solve problems. Want to "wow" people? Give then what they need to get something accomplished.

Lots of great responses everyone, thanks for chiming in.

The parallels Julius drew to Industrial Design were great. Many debates we're now having about (digital) product design have run their course in the realm of (physical) product design. As someone who minored in ID, I feel we can learn a lot from their discipline which has a little bit more history than ours.

Definitely the most thoughtful conversation I've had around this heated topic. Makes me excited about what we're building at Branch. Do feel free to branch off and continue the conversation!