Facebook has a new layout they’re testing and if you have a facebook profile and haven’t checked it out point your browser to http://www.new.facebook.com/.  My first impression is a like it a lot.  Facebook has always have a clean and simple, easy to use interface which was one of the main reasons why I switched from Myspace to Facebook.

Since they released their platform software which allows developers to create Facebook applications, I’ve seen some profiles start to look like Myspace.  Friends are installing some applications where I ask myself what’s the point of this application.  One thing I noticed off the bat is the most annoying ones take up space in the main column.  This now has it’s own tab.  It looks like the small left column has custom apps, but that’s far less annoying.

Another nice thing, is breaking more sections up without creating complex navigation.  Everything does not appear all on one page which for the most part is in the existing Facebook.  It posts most of the custom applications in it’s own tab called Boxes.  I’m not really sure how it choses what goes in the left column on the main page and what shows up in the Boxes section.  The annoying plug-ins seem to go into Boxes which is nice because you can view friends profiles without seeing all the garbage.

The person’s feed is the main page.  I think there’s a lot more emphasis on the feed which lacked attention in the existing layout.  What’s usual to me is there is an option to put a post on the wall from that page.  I’m not sure why that exists there and not on the Wall tab.

The Wall tab has to have a much cleaner layout.  I think since it’s not bounded by a box, it keeps things nice and open.  The fonts and spacing are bigger and I think that makes it easier to read.

The other tab is the info tab.  It has all the main information.

The last tab is the photo tab.  I think I’d like to have the option to turn this off because I use a Flickr plug-in in my profile.

What would be nice is the ability to customize the tabs.  I’m not sure how feasible that is with the AJAX implementation they are using.  This usuability is nice because everything seems to load pretty fast. For the most part, the majority of content editing happens inline.  People have been comparing the new system to be operating system like.  I can see similarities  but I think it’s just that it’s well organized and almost instant access.

Overall, I think they’ve done some good work.  It will be interesting to see what others think when it’s released.