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Petition: Facebook Increase Page Width for Developers
One of the things that frustrates me with all of the new Facebook apps is how many are squished into a tiny box. As I meet with more developers and startups, I see the need for more real estate within the Facebook environment.
First, Facebook itself is only set at the 800 screen resolution, we are passed that now Mark, this ain’t ’03. I remember the days when we moved from 600 to 100% – boy those were the days. I don’t understand why they simply can’t adjust the site to move at least to 1000 pixels, which would give the developers a minimum of 200 additional pixels to work with. I believe this would also reduce development time as the app creators wouldn’t need to spend as much time on trying to fit everything into the tiny box.
In addition, the current setup for Facebook could use some simple edits which would offer app creators an additional 150 pixels and create an entirely new platform – we can call it f9. Let’s move the app bar to the top and remove the skyscraper advert (see my mockup below). The advert has not once been targeted (which is a shock, who is selling facebook’s ads?) and I have no desire to pick who’s breasts the picture belongs to. It just cheapens the facebook brand. The entire left bar can be safely removed.
So with that said, I propose a petition to Facebook which you can join in the comments or by adding your own post about the topic.
"At a minimum, increase the site width to 1000 pixels and preferably, remove the left menu and let the app creators maximize their value which will increase the Facebook brand value as well."
Sample update:
Wetpaint Facebook app – notice how they had to work overtime with every pixel to cram everything in. And when you want to edit the Wiki – they had to overlay the page to fit in the panel – and they did an excellent job.
MyCheckout Facebook app – again a tight squeeze – would work better with 200 px of white space to work with
In direct opposition to the gist of this article (I know how old it is, but thought it important to share) Facebook has announced they will be reducing the available size for use in Fan pages from 760 pixels down to 520 pixels, sometime in January 2010. Sorry to be the harbinger of bad news…
“With all the apps that people are adding pages are running miles down the screen.”
“Games, videos, photo albums, and all sorts of other material fill the pages with content; these skinny pages just aren’t holding up like they ‘should’ be.”
I guess it comes down to a fundamental disagreement about what Facebook is. I’d say the purpose of Facebook was/is networking. I’ve always viewed people who install a hundred apps on their profiles as being entirely in opposition to the purpose of Facebook (and a direct result of the MySpace crowd migrating over). Increasing the width is just encouraging the practice.
But maybe I’m wrong. Maybe the whole Facebook-as-development-platform-slash-application-portal thing is really the direction everyone wants it to go. If that’s the case, count me out. I liked it simple, functional, and polished. The moment Facebook is trying to suit every purpose, it isn’t suited for any purpose at all. The public opening of Facebook, followed by user-generated apps, is like a small-scale Eternal September.
Of course, those rushing into Facebook with a thousand apps at their side are probably perfectly happy, and would love the extra width, and are probably now a majority. And I’m probably just old and cynical and should just give up and leave Facebook to the kids.
To sum things up: I liked reading text. And this change would make things less readable, while endorsing what I’ve viewed as a negative trend. QED, albeit extremely subjective.
It’s not about the code monkeys, it’s about room to breathe, monetize, and create apps that will help the facebook brand. I would like to know what is considered less than 10%, is it 2 or 9?
Also remember, that even if they did make the site wider, an app could choose to make it narrower should it be deemed necessary.
Quote:
>> Even so our stats show that fewer than 10% of our
>> Picnik/Facebook users have a 800×600 screen size.
That’s a LOT of users! Why would they want to upset the 10%, when the majority of the other 90% are not developers, and don’t give a monkeys if they have a few more pixels or not :)
If I understand your design, you’re saying move what is currently on the left into a menu. So you’d have to click the little down-arrow to expand the menu (that’s 1) and then click the app that you want (2 clicks). But the way it is now, you can have your most common apps near the top which is expanded already and it only takes 1 click.
Good design is not just about functionality; it is about usability and aesthetics.
If you move the apps to a menu at the top and increase the width to 1000px as you suggest…
1) you’re starting to approach the sprawling ugliness of MySpace’s “Home | Browse | Search | Invite | Film | Mail | …” link list, which is also more difficult to read (esp. for new users)
2) you’re increasing the number of clicks to get to an app by 1
3) just because people have a high res screen doesn’t mean they keep their browser windows that wide all the time (I personally don’t), as readability decreases when lines of text are more than about 60 characters. Lines wider than that seem to run on forever when you’re reading, and some designers will go so far as splitting a wide canvas into columns, as fb has already done.
I’m not saying it can’t be done, but it’s not so clear that the naive approach is as good as it seems.
Thanks for your comments Jon – let me try to address each one:
1. Increasing the width by 200px will allow "applications" (or whatever it’s called) to fit just fine without it being overwhelming. I thought about that because I agree with you regarding usability.
2. How is it increasing the clicks by 1? I thought about this as well and don’t see the click increase.
3. true to some extent but not entirely accurate and more and more the standard is moving to the 1024 size. In addition, while in an app, you could resize the window as needed.
I don’t like wide pages. they are very hard to read. I hope there is some margin from the left end of the browser.
I disagree entirely. There’s a reason Facebook is the size it is. Your eyes are best at reading thin, vertical columns of text. More and more websites seem to be forgetting this — a 800px wide column of text is infinitely harder to read than a 400px column. I think they got things just about right. It’s a fairly thin column, but not so thin that everything is pushed too far down the page.
If you’re fretting about squeezing a Facebook-integrated photo editor into 800 pixels, you’re not understanding Facebook. The primary function of Facebook is networking, not photo editing. 800 pixels is not about archaic standards, it’s about readability.
I’d be really disappointed if Facebook increased the width. Probably just as disappointed with their decision to allow user-created apps, a move that turned Facebook into MySpace overnight.
These skinny pages are a bunch of crap. With all the apps that people are adding pages are running miles down the screen. Personally, I have always wanted another column added to the page, but would absolutely settle for an extra 200 pixels of width.
We aren’t just reading text anymore — we are now being more interactive with applications. Games, videos, photo albums, and all sorts of other material fill the pages with content; these skinny pages just aren’t holding up like they “should” be.
I am all for the petition…I have already sent numerous suggestions to Facebook via the help page. Now, I just have to wait and hope they [Facebook] can create a better looking layout.
love it dude – im totally in!
not sure they will remove the banner ad – they live on that 3cents cpm – how do you think they get to 500 billion valuation?
but the width to 1000 pixels i like!
second that Raj
We have spent a lot of time and effort accommodating the Facebook constraints for Picnik, our Facebook-integrated photo editor. Even so our stats show that fewer than 10% of our Picnik/Facebook users have a 800×600 screen size: over 90% of our users have a lot of wasted space that could be adding to the quality of their photo editing experience.
Picnik is a Flash application so we have an out — a full screen button — but that’s not an option for most apps. Facebook, how about some room to breathe!
Interesting idea to kick around Allen.
I’m generally a fan of thin websites for small businesses and the like, but in Facebook’s case I think they can use the luxury of the extra space given how crowded some people’s profiles are getting because of a thousand different apps.
I like the neat ajax drag & drop effect on the Apps menu on the left hand side, but I agree it fits in better on the menu bar up top.
I also agree that the apps would be made more useful if there was more room for developers to work with. If you drag some apps to the thinner column on your profile, they look really hideously smooshed together.