Social networking giant Facebook has recently announced its plans to give users’ news feeds a facelift.
The announcement was made in a blog post on Tuesday, 15th August by Product Design Manager Shali Nguyen and Design Director Ryan Freitas.
The first change that will be made is that profile images will no longer appear in a square box. They will now conform to circular images, in a similar way to other social media platforms such as Facebook Messenger and Instagram. Microblogging site Twitter made the leap from square to circle back in June, with users initially showing a negative reaction to the change.
Another of the changes being made by Facebook is the appearance of the ‘like’ button. This is perhaps one of the platform’s most iconic features and one that will remain at the core of the site. However, it is getting a slight makeover in the latest update.
The icon itself will be subtly changed to a more modern looking thumb than the one presently in use. Before a user has liked a status update or a picture, the icon and the word ‘like’ is filled in a dark grey font before turning blue when it is pressed. As part of the latest update, it will now only have a grey outline of the shape and lettering. As well as this, the button will also be made larger and easier to tap. Furthermore, both the comment and share icons will receive the same treatment.
Another of the major changes that users will instantly notice is the appearance of the comment threads. At present, they are in a list with each comment boxed in its own row that takes up the whole of the screen. After the update, they will take the format of most SMS messages, Instagram and Twitter direct messages and have coloured speech bubbles. These will be filled in a light grey shade, making it simpler to see which comments are replies to another comment.
Other changes that are being made include an increased colour contrast in order for typography to be more legible. Link previews will be made larger and it will become easier for users to return to their news feeds after a post has been clicked.
According to the blog post, these changes will make the news feed appear more conversational, and it will become easier to navigate and read the content in the feed.
The update will be coming to iOS, Android and web versions of the social platform in the coming weeks.
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