What Facebook Should’ve Worked on Instead of a New Homepage

So, Facebook has redesigned its homepage. Again. Here are the major take-homes, according to what was included in the homepage announcement.

Welcome to your new, simplified home page.

• Manage privacy settings and log out using the Account menu above.
• See new requests, messages and notifications grouped together by the Facebook logo.
• Easily access your messages, applications and chat on the left side of the page.

This isn’t the first time Facebook has redesigned its homepage, and not the first time its users have been unhappy. See 7/24/2008, 3/22/2009, 10/27/2009, and most recently, 2/5/2010. I love the title of that last one: Surprise! People Dislike the Facebook Redesign.

I haven’t noticed how the new homepage design significantly changes the site. And all the call-outs they made, about managing privacy, seeing new requests and more easily accessing my messages… those were all things I either had no problem with before or still have the same problems with now.

So, what changes could Facebook make that would actually significantly improve the users experience?

1. Don’t allow people to message me about a group or event when I haven’t even responded to it. Or at least give me the option whether I want to receive these kind of messages. As is, my messages/Inbox is non-functional because it’s swamped with these mass messages. Or, if that’s not possible, at least separate them into their own folder.
2. Make and stand by some of your own apps. I’m tired of having to rely on third-party apps exclusively. It’s great that Facebook has opened the doors to developers, but there should be some basic tools that are available with Facebook’s name and credibility attached. Like an RSS importer. I’ve considered just creating a feed for my blog to dump into my profile, but I can’t figure out how. Simple stuff like that shouldn’t require outside Googling support.
3. Give me an easier way to edit my lists of Friends. Really? I have to click the drop down menu for each individual person? I can’t bulk-edit this? Given how wide-spread and public Facebook is now, I’m very glad they’ve added the ability to alter what is visible to who by lists, but c’mon. It’s normal for people to have hundreds and hundreds of friends. No one wants to dedicate the time it’d take to really use this feature to the fullest, so you either have people not using it as much as they could (take me for example), people not being very smart with their privacy, or people dedicating far more time than they should have to in order to protect themselves — none of which are great options.

Don’t fix what isn’t broken, and fix what is broken and has been for some time.