A couple of weeks ago, I wrote two posts about using the new Facebook home page, since a lot of functionality had changed from the previous version.

Since the launch, Facebook has responded to some of their users' comments (aka complaints) with some minor changes, so I'm going to point out the ones that have changed from what I had written earlier. (Unfortunately, they have yet to address some of the more serious flaws, like removing a person's current status line from the top of the page and eliminating friending info from the News Feed.)

News Feed Items

I know they've changed what items appear and don't appear in your News Feed now. For example, I no longer see the "Barbara Walters took the What Kind of Tree Are You quiz and she is a weeping willow" types of posts (thank goodness!). However, I'm really not clear anymore about what does and does not appear here. I think it's primarily status lines, photos and videos posted, and links to other websites that appear here, and everything else is on each person's Profile page. But don't quote me on that... :)

Filters

This list, on the left-hand side of the page, used to be broken into two groups. The top one let you filter your News Feed based on people or groups of people and the bottom one let you filter it based on applications. Now it's all one list. In the list of things I would have liked to have seen "fixed," this would have ranked at about #457, but there you go.

Friend Lists

I wrote another post earlier about how to create Friend Lists (and what you can do with them) from the Friends link in the top nav bar. They've now added a Create link under the filters so you can make a list right from the home page. (Another example of Bad Interface Design, since it implies that you can create new filters, which is only partially true, because it doesn't allow you to create them based on applications.) When you click the link, this box comes up:

Note: I kept trying this over and over and simply could NOT get it to add names to a list or save the list, so I thought it was broken. I finally figured out what the problem was. I was typing a name in the Choose Name box, then moving my cursor over to the Add To List box. However, if you don't hit Enter after typing in the list name, it doesn't "take." So make sure to do that, or you'll be incredibly frustrated—take it from me!

You can also use the same Create link to edit an existing list or to delete one. (Another reason the link should be renamed to, say, Manage Friend Lists.) Simply click the name of the filter and a pencil icon will appear at the right. Click that to make changes.

Note also that when you add a new list, it appears at the bottom of your filters, but you can drag it to wherever you want. If you drag it to the very top, it will become your default filter every time you come back to the home page, instead of News Feed, which has all your friends' updates.

Hiding and Unhiding Friends

To hide a friend's posts from your News Feed, you previously would hover over one of that person's posts, then click the X icon that appeared in the top right corner. The process is still the same, but they've changed the X to the word Hide. This is a good change, because it says exactly what you're going to do.

To unhide a friend, you still scroll to the bottom of the News Feed but, instead of saying See Hidden Friends, the link now says Edit Options. (There have been a number of bugs reported with this so, if you have any problems unhiding someone, check this post for possible solutions.)

This, on the other hand, is a bad change, because it's not clear at all what options you're going to be editing. And, really, there's only ONE option—removing friends from the hidden list. My guess is they did this because people thought See Hidden Friends was too similar to Show X Hidden Posts, which I would agree with. However, their solution doesn't help the situation at all. They should just name the link Unhide Friends and everyone would know exactly what that means.

Mashable also posted an entry last week about some new tweaks to the home page. They've mentioned a few things I haven't covered here, so you might want to check it out as well.

While some of these changes improve the home page a little bit, I do hope that Facebook will review some of the more substantive issues that have been raised by frustrated users. If they do, I'll be sure to let you know!

Posted in Bug Alert,Facebook,How To,Social Media,User Interface