Facebook Website Analysis

For visitor who does not have a Facebook account they must immediately make one through Facebook’s index page which has all the required information such as name, email, create password, gender and DOB (date of birth). Without an account there is no way to access to the body of the site. When logged in, Facebook directs user to the ‘home’ page where user can view ‘news feed’ which is where they can get information about what their friends have been up to on facebook. One of the best things about facebook is the event box on the ‘home’ page located on the top right hand corner. The event box allows user to view events such as incoming birthdays and organised party etc. On the bottom right corner on every page there is a chat box that allows user to communicate with their friend via instant message just like Skype and MSN etc. The second main page is the ‘profile’ place which allows user to edit their profile, upload photos, update blog, upload videos, and view comments from friends etc. Facebook is all about communicating and of course uploading photos. Facebook allows user to tag their photos as well as editing them. It gives user nearly maximum control over their profile page. The profile page is also a socialize page because that is where they post the ‘what’s on your mind?’ which immediately appears on the ‘live feed’ where other user can comment or ‘like’. As mentioned, users have almost maximum control over their page and that includes removing unwanted comments from friends/people which sometime can be useful because Facebook have been known to have spammers. The last main page is the account page which allows user to change the settings of their page, edit their friends, change privacy setting and search for help through the help centre but other than that user can also log out of their account through that page. User can either add or delete their friend/s through the edit friends page. Account setting allows user to change their personal detail such as name, email, password etc. There is also a deactivate my facebook button which allows the user to deactivate or delete their Facebook account for personal purposes. The privacy page allows user to make their page private which can only be viewed by friends. Facebook sounds like something that is too good to be true, it is a whole new socialize network but with all the new and sometime complicated stuff, it can get a bit confusing and that is when the help centre comes in handy. The page offers information about some of the most common questions such as ‘how do I block someone’, and also business related problems.

The consistency of the site is very strong because the site rarely crash. The reason for that is because the site is regularly update and maintained by professional software/website engineers. The site is made out program which explains why then loading and waiting time shortens. Once the computer load the page it recognises the program and therefore it does not have to go through the whole process of loading all the data again. Other social networking website such as ‘Bebo’ does not use such program and that is why the site always crash and the loading time seems to always be longer than usual. The site also offers an extremely helpful search bar which helps with the navigation and shortcuts. The search bar provides everything from message to find friends. Another helpful shortcut is the ‘notification’ (earth icon) near the search bar. The notification allows the user to view all new comments and posts that other people have posted on the user’s page. This also helps a lot when it comes to easy navigation and this is also another reason why most people aim for Facebook because website such as Bebo does not have the ability to do this. The design of the site is also very attracting with the colour blue as the theme. Blue is known as a famous colour because of the sky but it is also a sweet clear colour. The texts are mainly black which makes it visible and clearly read. The structure of the site is also very neat unlike the site hi5 which has things all over the place. Everything is grouped, meaning that photos will be in the photo section, group will be in the group section and comment box would usually be in the social section etc. User is allowed to do what ever they want to their profile page and that includes changing their appeared name and other things like profile picture. This gives people the opportunity what freedom is like because if there are lots of limits then the site would be poorly rated and the population of it would decrease. The site also offers the public to give feed back in regards to problems and updates needed. This helps make the designer update the site so that it meets the all user’s requirements. Facebook have been updated recently and those updates were based on user’s complaint about the notification box being too overloaded. Facebook realised the problem and fixed it which made it meet user’s requirement.