Facebook simplifies News Feed interface
A few months ago, Facebook added per-story feedback to the News Feed in order to allow users to help the service learn their personal preferences. While Facebook has always allowed more general Facebook preferences (like More About These Friends/Less About These Friends), this feedback was much more granular and potentially powerful.
However, as of today, Facebook has removed News Feed story preferences. When asked to comment on the change, a Facebook representative said the thumbs up and thumbs down were removed “to simplify the site and create a better user experience.”
It’s too bad Facebook wasn’t able to get more value out of the explicit preference data users were generating. For now, Facebook will need to rely on more implicit data.
April 15th, 2008 at 8:22 pm
I don’t agree with their reasoning. The buttons were already unobtrusive and you only really saw them when you were looking for them. Bring the buttons back, Facebook!
April 15th, 2008 at 9:02 pm
I always thought those things were a little useless. How does the user interpret them? How do they interpret the statistics resulting? What am I saying I don’t like about the fact my friend just left a political group – I don’t like group stories? political groups specifically? leaving groups? news about that friend in particular?
April 15th, 2008 at 9:44 pm
I need the thumbs, i used to see the news I already see and what news are new!
Right now i dont know what news are new or old!
April 16th, 2008 at 1:08 am
Very disappointing, I got quite used to this feature.
April 16th, 2008 at 6:32 am
I also want the thumbs back. I sent a question to Facebook if my thumb down indicated I didn’t want that type of feed, or if it also indicated I don’t want news from that user, but I never got an answer.
But I also found the thumbs extremely useful for marking what I had read, allowing me to quickly discover new news items.
April 16th, 2008 at 7:49 am
When I wrote to ask about the missing buttons, what they told me was “We have removed these options to reduce clutter on the site.”
I agree with Mitch and Rafael and Glen, I didn’t think the buttons were cluttering at all, and I liked the idea of being able to give per-story feedback, and I ALSO used it to tell which items I had read! Kinda frustrating now. It’s definitely NOT a better user experience here, without them.
April 16th, 2008 at 8:06 am
I find it hard to use facebook without my thumbs!
April 16th, 2008 at 8:22 am
[...] Facebook noticed that the thumbs up icon no longer on the Facebook mini-feed. All in the name of simplification [...]
April 27th, 2008 at 1:18 pm
[...] weeks after it removed per-story (thumbs up/thumbs down) preferences from the News Feed, Facebook today further simplified the News Feed interface by removing the [...]
July 31st, 2008 at 1:24 am
[...] Facebook simplified the News Feed interface a few months ago by removing the “thumbs up/thumbs down” ratings system, in-line News [...]
December 6th, 2009 at 6:40 pm
So true…