And Getting User Experience A Bit More
We used to have this famous mantra … and the idea here is that as developers, moving quickly is so important that we were even willing to tolerate a few bugs in order to do it. What we realized over time is that it wasn’t helping us to move faster because we had to slow down to fix these bugs and it wasn’t improving our speed.
Mark Zuckerberg
Remember when the marching rule was, Move Fast and Break Things for Facebook?
It now appears that the new official guideline is: Move Fast With Stable Infra.
Facebook apparently is learning something about user experience. It’s about time. Actually, Zuckerberg’s candor and desire to adjust Facebook’s view of users and quickly fix bugs is pretty refreshing in my eyes.
Whether they can achieve their new goal of fixing bugs within 48 hours remains to be seen, but it’s a noble goal – very user-centric in fact.
I commend Facebook for realizing and discussing the importance of developing a platform based upon a better user experience – one with fewer bugs.
The other item I noticed this past week in regards to Facebook, is that there is going to be a :
New Anonymous Login Option
This was just announced at Facebook’s F8 developer conference. Users will have greater control over the data that is shared with 3rd party apps on the Facebook platform. The idea is that we will be able to “anonymously” try out a Facebook app and even selectively decide what data will be shared to it.
“Anonymous” In Quotations
Some are criticizing Facebook’s use of the word anonymous. After all, this is a company, that like Google, feeds on our data.
Yes, Facebook will continue to know who we are, what apps we choose to use, and how we use them. So anonymity is not something that will exist between users and Facebook – just between users and 3rd-party app developers.
Facebook will probably achieve some monetary benefits as well by holding all of the data cards in its pockets and reducing what’s available to 3rd-party developers.
The Big “But”
BUT, I still have to commend Facebook for at least taking a step in the right direction. I believe that this has more pro than con for everyday users.
Truly privacy conscious savvy users will understand the limitations of Facebook’s new “anonymous” login roll-out.
However, why knock this decision when a company is at least doing something that will benefit mainstream users? I’m usually one of the first on that bandwagon to recognize Facebook’s UE (user-experience) fumbles. This time, I’m willing to cut them some slack for doing something good for UE.
It wasn’t too long ago when these two new things coming out of Facebook would have been completely unheard of – or even imaginable.
So maybe Facebook has grown up a little bit.
Growing up is never easy. You hold on to things that were. You wonder what’s to come. But that night, I think we knew it was time to let go of what had been, and look ahead to what would be. Other days. New days. Days to come. The thing is, we didn’t have to hate each other for getting older. We just had to forgive ourselves… for growing up.
The Wonder Years
