Gadgets Blog Homepage

We don’t like change!!

Or at least that’s what effectively just over 1,000,000 Facebook users are saying (though maybe not in a comedic way with a regional accent) with regards to the sites impending new design. For the last seven weeks the new design has been accessible alongside the ‘traditional’ design, allowing users to switch between the two (or not) as they wish.

Unfortunately, for some, this new design is set to become permanent with no switch back to the old page layout any day. This has caused uproar amongst users with several groups being set-up to petition against the new look site, this being the one with most members, which has also been featured in a BBC story about the topic.

I myself have been using the new design permanently since I noticed it in an attempt to get used to it, and must say there are some things about the new design that I much prefer. For example I used to hate trawling through all the application boxes on someone’s page to write a message on their wall. My home PC isn’t the fastest and it was really struggling with some of the people who seemed to have added every application under the sun, by separating various details into different tabs the new design appears to have solved this particular issue. On the other hand there are some people who don’t like this feature, seemingly feeling that the myriad arrangement of boxes on their page gives them their personality.

After looking through a lot of these groups and reading umpteen posts on the group forums I can’t help but feel that although there are some concerns that the designers would do well to take note of, as well some relevant and genuine constructive criticism, unfortunately there seem to be a lot of people who ‘hate’ the new design just because it is different. At the end of the day with over 100,000,000 users if the worst case scenario as far as the owners are concerned came to pass, and a whopping 1% of their user base boycotted the site it wouldn’t be the end of the world for them.

On the other hand maybe they could take a look at our stunning new site design at Gadgets.co.uk, that we have received plenty of positive feedback about from our customers, and find some inspiration?