The Critic

Software developers love to critique software. Combine this fact with my new found ability to look at UI's thru the eyes of Logan, who is four, and the urge to critique is strong!

So...

I use Facebook (yeah, yeah) as a simple/quick way to keep up with "friends." My "user story" would be:

As a friend, I want to quickly scan recent posts so I can see if there is anything of interest that I want to explore further.

Facebook recently created a duel mode UI: "Live Feed" and "News Feed". This just confuses me. I prefer Live Feed but sometimes I'm switched to News Feed. Which mode is active is not obvious because both modes look the same except for a small difference in text sequence, bolding and color at the top of the page. My focus, however, is not at the top of the page, it's on the posts and those look the same.

It's not until I've read a few posts that I recognize them as old, a sign of News Feed. So I switch to Live Feed, and then, OK, now I can use Facebook as I desire. The problem (my problem?) is that the recognition and mode switch detracts from my goal of quickly scanning recent posts.