Amidst all of the chaos and confusion of March 2020, Facebook somehow decided to be the cherry on top.
Impeccable timing, Zuck!
On March 19, while sifting through quarantine updates from friends and family, I noticed a banner at the top of Facebook. It said, "You're invited to try the new Facebook."
With the world changing day by day, minute by minute, a new Facebook was the last thing I wanted. But as a marketing professional, I knew I had to be an early adopter. And with all my plans cancelled for the foreseeable future, I figured there probably was no better time to dive in.
Here's a screenshot of the new layout. It seems like this is going to be rolled out slowly and voluntarily at first. Once you accept the invitation, you can roll back to the old interface. (Is there an option to roll back to 2019? Asking for a friend.)
The good news is that the new desktop interface is not exactly revolutionary. It's still the same basic format: groups/shortcuts on the left, timeline in the middle, ads and updates on the right. You still search and view notifications via the toolbar at the top.
Right off the bat, the biggest change I noticed was the edge-to-edge layout. The old/current FB desktop interface was padded in on the left and right edges. By pulling the content all the way to either edges of the screen, the new design opens up more space.
The design is also leaning into icons. The word "Facebook" has been replaced with the F-logo. "Search" has been replaced with a magnifying glass. Home, Profile, and Account have been replaced by their graphic equivalents.
Overall, the design feels like a cross between Instagram for desktop and the Facebook mobile app. While the spirit of the design is the same, you might have to think for a second about how to get where you want to go within the site. But I think we've all been trained to understand what these icons mean.
Groups, though, threw me for a loop. When you go into a group, the right and left-hand panels go away. This feels really strange to me because I'm not really sure how to get back out of the group. And even moreso, there are no ads in the right-hand panel. What's that all about, FB? Don't tell me you're reducing your ad inventory!
I also see that Messenger (the chat balloon in the bottom right corner) is getting more of a front-and-center feature. Facebook really wants people to rely on Messenger for everything from texting to ordering pizza. Increasing the visibility of Messenger makes sense.
Business Pages look slightly different too. The cover image area is now front-and-center, so make sure that graphic is not an afterthought. Put in something striking, or consider implementing a video cover.
Page managers will also find their tools in a left-hand panel now. This makes it a bit easier to navigate to editing your page, getting analytics, and managing comments.
Overall, I think the new interface has a clean, modern, airy look. The clutter has been reduced. It might take a few days to settle into, but I'm not overly rattled by the changes. I will be interested to see how the new design impacts available ad types, layouts, and performance.