Facebook ditches redesign as users PCs are poor

Towards the end of 2013, Facebook showcased its redesign which featured, big and bold pictures.

However, the update was never rolled out, why? Because users have poor old PC's.

Original claims that the roll-out was abandoned due to a lack of advertising revenue on the new design have been thrown into doubt, as Facebook product designer Julie Zhuo has said that statement is incorrect and explained that peoples old resolution monitors are the reason the roll-out never occurred:

It turns out, while I (and maybe you as well) have sharp, stunning super high-resolution 27-inch monitors, many more people in the world do not. Low-res, small screens are more common across the world than hi-res Apple or Dell monitors.

And the old design we tested didn't work very well on a 10-inch Netbook. A single story might not even fit on the viewport. Not to mention, many people who access the website every day only use Facebook through their PC—no mobile phones or tablets.

Scrolling by clicking or dragging the browser scrollbar is still commonly done because not everyone has trackpads or scroll wheels.

If more scrolling is required because every story is taller, or navigation requires greater mouse movement because it's further away, then the site becomes harder to use. These people may not be early adopters or use the same hardware we do, but the quality of their experience matters just as much.

Zhou added that the redesign would've been better for generating advertising revenue according to Gizmodo. In the end Facebook opted for a solution that would work best for the majority of its users.