14 DAY TRIAL // From a distance Facebook looks like a very conservative site and the look of the social network seems very much unchanged for years. But take a closer look and you'll notice that the company is constantly tweaking and updating the design and features and now it's getting ready for another homepage redesign. The first details popped up a couple of weeks ago but now we have a much better overview of the upcoming changes including the Top News filter and the Recent Activity view.
We got a first glimpse of the changes that were spotted in the wild as the social network was testing them in a limited trial. Facebook confirmed the changes but would not give any additional details. Now Mashable has managed to get its hands on a document meant for advertisers, which details the direction Facebook is heading with the homepage, with more customization options aimed at making it more suited as a central point of interest for content on Facebook but also on the web.
“Facebook is simplifying the user experience on the home page by introducing Top News and Recent Activity streams. Now, when users log on to Facebook for the first time in a while, they will see the most important stories that they missed while they were away. From there, users can navigate to the real-time stream and toggle between both views throughout their sessions. In addition to making it easier for users to view content that is most relevant to them, this change also speeds up the time it takes for the home page to load and makes birthday reminders more prominent,” Facebook explained the new features.
The changes aren't revolutionary but they add some much needed flexibility to the News Feed. Users who may visit the social network infrequently will still be able to keep up with the most important stories thanks to the new achronological ranking system in Top News. At the same time, those who want to be constantly connected will appreciate the Recent Activity view which brings information in real time. With this split the Highlights section from the right sidebar has been integrated into the Top News view. Facebook has also, at the request of the users, brought back a lot of the notifications in the News Feed like photo tags, friend acceptances, relationships, Event RSVPs and group memberships.
The new design is believed to provide quite a few improvements to the advertisers as well. With Highlights out of the way, the right sidebar is now less cluttered so the homepage ad stands out more. Facebook Pages should also get a boost in fans according to the social network thanks to things like the Fan stories which now show up in the center stream. There are still some unanswered questions but this document was meant for advertisers so it focuses on the aspects that would interest them.