Keep Your Users Informed
Social Networking, Website Usability
In recent times, Facebook has been at the centre of criticism when introducing new changes which included changes to the user interface as well as general changes to the core functionality. The criticism came from a large majority of their users, who really felt the new changes were not in their best interests – a Facebook group was even set-up to argue against the changes which attracted hundreds of thousands of users. I myself have liked all the changes Facebook have made to date however it was obvious the large majority of users, including some of my friends did not.
If you are a Facebook user you would of noticed recently that a new layout with a bunch of changes has been introduced, however this time I feel that there will not be so much fuss made about them as in the past few updates. This time Facebook have done something very smart, they have kept their users informed. When logging into your account for the first time since the changes have been introduced, right at the top in the prime position is a banner which explains that there have been changes along with why those changes are helpful.
If you click on the link in the banner, you are then taken to page which fully explains each of the different changes.
In any area of your business, keeping customers informed / updated should be one of your top priorities. This is no different to running a website – if people or users are kept informed they are going to be happy or at least happier then if you didn’t. I guarantee you if Facebook had of taken the same approach when rolling out their last few updates there would not of been such anger from users.
