Ah, uniform visual identity. See this video from 2005: "Microsoft Redesigns the iPod packaging"[1] That's by Microsoft's own design team, struggling with Microsoft's corporate identity.
Facebook's bigger problem is page clutter. I just counted 227 clickable things on my Facebook home page, and I'm only scrolled half the way down. The Facebook branding icon only appears once. If they left it out, nobody would care, except that it's also the home button.
Do minuscule changes like these actually have any impact with users? To be honest, I was struggling to notice any difference in many, if not most of the before/after screenshots. I just can't see a typical user appreciating the change, or even noticing.
There's clearly a lot of difference between all the icons, but even then they're all clearly Facebook. I would almost expect the arbitrary icon changes to confuse users more than the consistent style would benefit them.
Would be nice if that site didn't hijack keyboard shortcuts for 'Back' and prevent you from leaving the site.
Anyone have any other good design blogs like this?
Really great process overall, really enjoyed this post. Thank you for posting.
Did anyone notice the like button with "Suka" on it. I knew "Suka" was a curse in russian (due to gaming online) but couldn't find out it means "like" in which language.
Anybody know anything about it??
[Edit] Nvm, found out it is in Indonesian.
Surprised there was no mention of the Paper app.
I really appreciated the spectrum[0] from informal internal usage of the brand all the way to the hardcore, "on message" usage in the actual product.
Unless you're on the design team for a large company, it's easy to forget that other people use assets differently and you can't just copy and paste something from a hackathon poster into something that appears on the marketing website.
The thought that goes into changes like this is deep and complex. It's also not glamorous nor does it get prioritized often. Great write up.
[0] http://officeofbenbarry.com/images/portfolio/1200/benbarry-0...