Facebook Tests Redesigned News Feed

Facebook has been on somewhat of a redesign spree lately and it looks like it's not stopping here. The social network is now testing a freshened up News Feed page with a few but important changes. Some users have noticed that the new News Feed does away with the Publisher in its current form replacing it with a simple button tagged “Update status” but also features a “Top News” link.

“We are currently testing different designs of the News Feed and the home page with select users,” a Facebook spokesperson told InsideFacebook confirming the experimental designs initially spotted by The Next Web. “The tests help us understand if we can make it easier for users to balance both the most important and the most recent information from people they’re connected to.”

The first noticeable difference in the new design is the absence of the Publisher box. Facebook decided to hide the Publisher by default as most people don't post from the News Feed page. The page now features just a gray button labeled “Update status” which, when clicked, reveals the Publisher box in all its glory. Interestingly, this isn't the first time the social network opted for this solution as the Facebook Lite version launched a few weeks back features somewhat similar buttons for posting content.

The biggest change though is the “Top News” filter, which now sits on top of the news stream. The link allows users to view only the most popular stories among their friends, which could prove a very useful way of keeping up with the most important entries in the News Feed if it usually gets too cluttered. There are a handful of other small tweaks many of which were first introduced in Facebook Lite. The Highlights right-hand sidebar is now gone and photos again show up in the feed. The “Notifications” section has also been renamed to “Requests.” There's no word on when Facebook may start rolling out the changes to a larger audience or what other tweaks to expect.