sugarenia.com

I’m on Facebook. I’m not that active there, but I use it sometimes to stalk learn more about the cool people I meet online.

For this ranting, I’m gonna use Petros’s profile, because he’s a cool guy and I know that he started working on github some months ago. He also went on a trip to San Fransisco! How cool is that? I wanna see photos of that trip. How difficult can it be?

The mysterious case of Facebook photos

That’s Petros’ profile page, complete with goofy avatar. I see some random photos on the top strip, but I wanna see all of his photos. On the left sidebar, there’s a (6) right next to photos – so I guess there’s only six photos of him on Facebook? Puzzled. I click on it.

I don’t see 6 of anything, I just see two sections – “Petros’s photos” and “Photos and videos of Petros”, I guess posted by other users. That’s twelve thumbs, so I guess the (6) metaphor got lost in the way.

Let’s start with “Petros’ photos”. The six albums shown seem fishy – I know there must be more! There’s absolutely no other indicator for that, only a tiny link on the top right with a label “See all: Photos”. So there must be more, right? If you click on a link, you’ll see that there are more, indeed. sigh

Anyway, back again. There’s another link to see all videos by Petros. Video’s cool! Let’s click on it.

Nada. My question is – why have a perfectly normal link to something that doesn’t exist? Make it grey. Add a (0) indicator. Remove it altogether. sigh

Underneath that section, there’s “Photos and videos of Petros”. Well first of all, which of them are videos? You guessed it, there aren’t any, eventhough the title hints to it. And there’s a cryptic link on the top right that says: “See all Photos”. I click on it – nothing happens, except that the link text changes to “See all Photos and videos”.

Excuse my french, but what. The flying. Fuck.

Why so unusable?

There’s no question that Facebook is huge. Their developers and designers are hard-working and I understand their struggle to keep up with millions of users every day.

But they should get theis grip together and properly address the gaping UX holes they created over the years.

The whole situation is foul and dangerous. Not for the future of Facebook per se, I couldn’t care less about that – plus, people don’t really care about usability when they stalk their exes or poke random blonde girls.

I consider it dangerous for the future of all web applications though, and for user experience in general. I can already see a full generation of people, hardly ever using web services apart from Facebook, sitting baffled in front of perfectly functional design patterns because they learned it the Facebook way.

Naysayer? Maybe. Pissed off? Definitely.

And I didn’t even touch the “tiny 11px Lucida Grande font” or “horrendous new photo viewer” subject.

Last night, while I was walking towards home, a stranger felt up my derrière.

Thought you misread? Let me rephrase: while I was returning home last night from my weekly trip to Stelios‘ place for our podcast, a random man on a scooter approached me, slowed down, grabbed my bum and drove away.

Here I was, thinking about wireframes and workflows and a Mac app, when suddenly I felt a hand on my ass.

What. The. Fuck.

My first (and only) reaction was shock. I just stood there, totally speechless, and watched him leaving without as much as a shout.

At first I thought I was stupid for not screaming. Then I thought, maybe it was someone I know. But then, I don’t keep grab-yo-bum relationships with anyone apart the boyfriend™, and even he wouldn’t dare to do that in plain sight, while I’m walking alone at night.

Then I realized what happened. And I felt like shit.

Do you know what’s worse? I momentarily felt guilty. I thought – hey, maybe my jeans were hanging too low. Maybe they were too tight. Maybe I moved too much while walking, do I do that really? I must stop it, then, it’s provocative. That stupid female remorse that’s wired in our brains.

I’m not big on feminism and I’ve been quite vocal about it. I think it creates a huge divide between the two genders that’s uncalled for. If we, women, want to be treated as equals, we have to start behaving like we are. The whole thing seems a bit whiney to me.

But one jackass in a motorcycle helmet managed to lessen me and my big mouth to pulp.

That prick.

The subject is touchy. Therefore I won’t tolerate jokes in the comnents. In fact – screw it, I’m closing them off completely for this post only.

Dear Wikipedia,

don’t do that.

Users act by habit. Yours is a search-based service. You moved the search box (the single most-used element of your design) from the center left to the top right. You have a fluid design. People love 24” or even 30” monitors.

Do the math.

It’s a wonder users haven’t started a riot yet. If I were a hardcore Wikipedia user, I’d have started one for sure.