A few days ago I twittered that Facebook now feels like walking through the midway of a second-rate, shady fair, with barkers and carnies shouting at you from every booth, tent and dark corner.
Here is the screenshot that made me feel like this. It was one pop-up piled onto another…and they weren’t ads, this was actual functionality that I as a user was supposed to attend to and act on.
I’ll be honest with you: this isn’t a tightly-reasoned judgment about the usability of Facebook. This is a from-the-gut reaction from an occasional user: Facebook’s user experience is out of control.
I’m not saying that the whole “Facebook-is-a-platform” thing is wrong; in fact I think opening up to third-party apps was a brilliant way to jumpstart the creation of an ecosystem. But there are consequences to this move. And one of them is that, from the perspective of an occasional user who is loathe to annoy or Facespam his friends, Facebook’s user experience makes me feel like I’m always one step away from falling prey to a social virus masquerading as an app, one that is going to spam my friends and make me look like a bonehead.
Which is why I don’t ever, EVER knowingly poke, join a cause, throw a pie, etc. I say knowingly because it’s highly likely that I’ve inadvertently Facespammed my friends through the simple act of responding to another’s entreaty. Bad on me, I know. Honestly, I have no idea if I’ve done this or not…and that’s a big part of the problem. Facebook (or more accurately Facebook’s apps) doesn’t readily inform me of the consequences of my potential or actual actions.
Which leads me to the issuance of a blanket mea culpa: If I’m connected to you on Facebook and you’ve received something stupid from me, please accept my apologies. And know that from now on, my mental default when it comes to Facebook’s carnival of social-viruses-cum-apps is “no thank you, I’ll pass.”
