What is the experience? Who is the audience?
Facebook has come a long way since its debut when it subsumed the role of the original social media site that started it all for my generation – MySpace. It seems as though most people my age and younger have now migrated away from Facebook in favor of other social media apps like Instagram and others. This may be because facebook attracts an older audience as of late, everyone’s family is on, and it has become all too often an arena for ugly, hateful and unintelligent political and social debates. I use the word “debates” loosely here. And yes sometimes despite knowing I should avoid browsing the comment sections of some posts – mostly political and especially local news posts where it seems like the worst of the worst just spout every uniformed opinion that pops into their head – sometimes I can’t avoid looking for the entertainment value, but the end result is usually the same – a near depression and despair about the state of our country and the rampant anti-intellectual, anti-education streak apparent from the “top minds” on this social media platform.
But then I must remind myself its not all bad. What is nice about Facebook for me is I can customize it. What I mean is suppose you have a racist uncle who only talks about Hillary’s emails and how Obama is the socialist antichrist and his main platform to spout this rhetoric is Facebook. You can still be friends with family members or other people whose views you don’t agree with and simply unfollow so you don’t have to see their posts. You can also choose who can see your posts if you are worried about certain family members seeing and commenting on it. While I do really enjoy and use other social media apps like Instagram and Reddit, Facebook brings something different to the table. I find out about a lot of events, concerts, and other happenings local to me that I might be interested it. I discover new restaurants I’d like to try. I discover new and delicious vegan recipes to try. I belong to a lot of groups in which I learn about history through old photos and stories from old-timers I wouldn’t hear anywhere else. I discover amazing trails to hike and places to camp and explore that I wouldn’t elsewhere. I’ve furnished half of my apartment with items purchased on Facebook Marketplace and purchased the bike I commute to and from campus with on there as well. So for as much trouble it can be sometimes, I still see it as an overall benefit and useful to me so that is why I still use it.
What about this example is provocative/interesting?
I already touched on why I use Facebook and what makes it interesting for me, so now I will discuss the subject of this post: the desktop vs mobile experience. The first difference is how I reach the site through different devices. On my laptop, I just browse to the url in Chrome and it opens my homepage/feed.
I can quickly see any new notifications, see if I have any messages or friend requests in the top right corner. The search bar is prominent. Under the search I can quickly write a post/post a photo or video. I can view friends’ stories under that and under that begins the scrollfest of my news feed. I can quickly access Marketplace and view some of the groups I belong to with the sidebar navigation on the left side of the page. So everything is laid out cleanly, they do a decent job or organizing lots of information and navigation and it is nice seeing photos in the large size the desktop version provides. But it feels a little clunky when compared to the mobile version. The mobile experience is where the site shines in my opinion and the version that I use the most. Perhaps is is the convenience and accessibility and how I access the mobile version that explains part of this.
I access the mobile version through the app instead of a browser. This is convenient and creates a different, streamlined experience.
The format is a little different. The nature of the device creates a more portrait orientation rather than the landscape of the desktop version, but I think this works well. Its very easy to quickly scroll through your feed with on finger. The search option is still prominent which is nice, and the ability to write a post or go live is front and center. Stories are highlighted largely in the hierarchy and below that begins the feed. The navigation is set up differently than the desktop version and runs along the bottom of the screen with home, videos, marketplace, news (?), and notifications. The hamburger menu on the bottom right is convenient and allows me to access everything else – pages I run, groups I belong to, saved posts, etc. It is simple, streamlined and includes everything you need in a compact accessible format.
In what ways is this example successful?
I believe this is a good example of a user experience being consistent, intuitive, simple, and useful across different platforms. I think if you are familiar with one version and not the other, it wouldn’t be difficult to learn, as even though elements are arranged differently the icons are pretty much the same across both. For mobile it provides instant gratification and a very easy way to kill time and procrastinate. I find myself learning about trails, campgrounds, photo destinations, local history as well as restaurants and/or events and then further researching them on GoogleMaps or doing a Google search. The desktop version of the newsfeed is long and relatively narrow, similar to the newsfeed on the mobile version and the top bar and sidebar navigational elements remain static as you scroll.
How might you make it even better?
While the ability to search stays consistent no matter how deep into your feed you are, the option to make a post requires either scrolling back up to the beginning top of the page or pressing the link to home, which likely will scramble your feed. That brings me to anther inconvenience. Sometimes you are invested in someones post, reading comments, etc, and you exit the app for a second or lock your phone and reopen it and the post is gone. Your feed is refreshed and its pretty difficult to find that post again. This is frustrating and happens through mobile only in my experience, but the majority of my use of the site is through mobile. Another annoyance in the mobile version is that you must download a separate app to use messenger. It used to be part of the Facebook app but not anymore. I use messenger to communicate with friends almost as much as texting, and that is how you communicate for both buying and selling on marketplace so its pretty important to me. But in reality these are relatively minor inconveniences and overall the app is useful to me and provides and slightly different, but consistent and gratifying experience across platforms both desktop and mobile.
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