Facebook Should Use Feedback Loops During Development

Many facebook users are unhappy with the new interface that launched recently.  A poll of facebook users showed 94% of users do not like the changes.   Just search for “facebook interface” on the site and you will see what people are talking about.   Finally, we can all see the benefit of online software with the possibility of immediate feedback!

How do you end up making changes to a site that so many of your users don’t like?  This question is hard to answer without more insight into the organization.  One way to reduce the chance of producing unwanted changes is to create healthy feedback loops during development.  Users love to give feedback if you provide the opportunity as we can see through the numerous responses to the new interface.

How to gather feedback

Here are some ways developers can gather feedback on their ideas and proposed changes.  I must say up front that I am not connected to facebook and have no idea if any of these processes were used:

Do usability testing – Usability testing is simple and effective.  Put your new site in a protected location online that users with permission can see.  Ask your approved users to do a series of actions on the new site.  Most importantly, ask them to speak their reactions out loud even if the reaction is negative.   You will hear and see first hand what changes you are making are good and what changes are perhaps not so good.  Here’s an online service to do usability testing that some of our clients have used.

Use focus groups – Find users who live within driving distance of corporate HQ, bring them in for pizza and project the new interface on the wall.  Start asking questions.  Take a lot of notes.  Repeat.  There is actually a methodology around focus groups, but an unstructured approach can also be very effective.

Prototype – Long before you code anything, create simple graphic mockups and email them to prominent users, bloggers (provided they are willing to hold their posts until launch), family members and employees.  Ask participants to email you their reactions along with any suggestions they might have.

Have a REAL beta! – Create a group of a thousand or so users who are willing to actively participate in a beta.  By “real” beta, I don’t mean putting out incomplete software for all users to play around on (gmail, your beta period is over!).  Let your beta users directly access the new site for a few weeks so they can get a feel for the workflows and functionality.  Provide a simple form for them to email you feedback.  Make sure you find users willing to try new features who will make the effort to email their comments to the team.

After reading about these various processes for gathering feedback, do you think that the developers at facebook might have been able to determine that users might have issues with the new interface?

If you want to avoid making similar mistakes, make sure that gathering and responding to feedback is an integral part of your development process.  Leave time in the schedule to make product changes.  One of the top reasons feedback loops fail is development teams don’t have time to address highlighted issues.

Let’s talk brass tacks

One of the top complaints about the new interface is that users are confused and often have to hunt around to find areas that should be easier to locate.  Some basic user interface elements might improve usability and decrease this confusion.  I have listed a few ideas below.  After all,  what good is pointing out issues if you are not going to offer solutions:

- Provide a consistent site wide bread crumb trail to help users see exactly where they are.   For example, how about showing something like Home > Photos > Albums > Napa Fall 2008 > Photo 2 of 18  on the page?  With a bread crumb trial , users can see exactly where they are and how to navigate back.  Some areas on facebook have a bread crumb trail and some don’t.  To be effective, this needs to be consistent and present everywhere.

- Provide site wide navigation that is always available.  Would it be so bad to have a menu bar or left side navigation or some other common control to access the entire site?

- Use labels and hints to help users understand what they are looking at.  For example, take the word “Highlights” on the home page.  How about a little helper text like popular updates from friends or something like that?  Labels with hints set the context for users and help reduce confusion.  I suggest reading Don’t Make Me Think by Steve Krug.  I had my own don’t make me think moment a few months back.

A real example – Events

Let me provide an example of what I am talking about using the Events feature.

I see more and more people putting birthdays into facebook.  Current birthdays shows up in the upper right corner of the home page.  I’ve never used the Events feature before and had thought these were just notifications.

On the current site, you have to click twice in that corner to get to Events.  That seems to be the only way to get there as Events don’t seem to belong anywhere.  I don’t see them in the menus or as links in other places.  These next changes would help users navigate Events, which would hopefully increase site usage as well as improve user satisfaction:

1) Put the label Events on the home page above the daily events.  This tells me this is an actual area of the product.  Heck, go crazy, even put small hint text like where you see birthdays or create your own events.

2) Provide general navigation to get to the Events area.  If you put them under your Profile, which may or may not be the best place, then have a sub-navigation under Profiles that lists Events and the other sub-areas that are part of Profiles.   This needs to always be available to users through the primary navigation I suggest above.

3) Show Home > Profile > Events when users go to the main Events page.

These changes reinforce Events is a feature and that it is located under Profiles.  Overall, users won’t feel as lost when they come to understand the layout of the site.

With a little bit of development process to support integrated user feedback, developers can determine the changes users want to see, which should in turn lead to a happier and more productive user base.