Facebook testing a new Timeline design; tabs replace thumbnails

Now, now, now! Facebook may be tweaking its Timeline design some more; at least, that’s what guys at ABC News have to say. Facebook reportedly rolled out a new Timeline design for one of ABC News’ producers on Wednesday, leading them to believe that the social networking giant may have given them ‘a peek at the future of Timeline’. From what they know, Facebook is seemingly experimenting with new ways of laying out user pages. Interestingly, Facebook confirmed this with the site: “This is a new design Facebook is testing with a small percentage of people to make navigating timeline even easier."

What do you think?

Going by what they saw, ABC News shares that the new look includes Tabs, meaning there is no place for the “friends” and “photos” thumbnails. The redesigned timeline also means that a user’s name will move into the cover photo! The text will show up in while. Not sure how many users would like that one. Interestingly, those looking for a user’s “About" details (in the new design) wil be able to do so by staying on the same page that they are looking. They can scroll down, below the “about” details and they will be able to see a “friends” list. Moving further, they will even be able to view the photos, too. In the new design, users will be able to view the precise number of followers. So suppose, a user has 180, 023 subscribers, then that would be shown as 180k. Also, the word “subscribers”  has been replaced with “followers”. 

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Further, the new design puts all the posts in a single stream on the left, with all the friend and photo information moved to the right. Currently though, users have to shift their gaze from right to left and vice versa to view the posts. Early last month, an Inside Facebook report had pointed towards this particular bit. According to that report, Facebook was testing a new layout design, wherein all posts will be visible in a single column on the left, while all activity indicators will be moved to a column on the right. The report indicated that the new design will omit the line at the centre. The column with the dates, i.e., the Timeline, can be viewed at the top right of the page. Those in Facebook’s test group reportedly spotted wider posts. Modules like “Recent Activity", “Friends", “Places” and those for any Open Graph apps were alll to the right, similar to how they are on the original Timeline.

Timeline essentially allows users to view their lives as on Facebook in chronological order, dotted with pictures, posts, videos and all. All the events in the life of the user, and the content he or she has posted, right from the date of creating the profile, is neatly arranged in chronological order, as if telling a story.

When the Timeline was introduced, not all users liked the idea of adopting the Timeline. And sure enough, this compulsory transition is bound to face stiff resistance. The Telegraph quoted one user as saying, “I’m sorry but this is rubbish. I’m surprised Facebook hasn’t included a compulsory DNA profile section (default to public obviously).”

Late in January this year, there were similar reports about Facebook giving users a week’s time to make the scheduled switch from their old profiles to the one with the Timeline. At the time, we had cited an official blog post by Paul McDonald on The Facebook blog. In his post, he had said, “Last year we introduced timeline, a new kind of profile that lets you highlight the photos, posts and life events that help you tell your story. Over the next few weeks, everyone will get timeline. When you get timeline, you’ll have 7 days to preview what’s there now. This gives you a chance to add or hide whatever you want before anyone else sees it.”