When designing a UI for a website it's important to stay consistent. Consistency is important because it teaches people what to expect from a site and how they should use it. Visual inconsistency can lead to confusion for people. One of the most surprising changes Facebook made recently was shrinking the font size on the News Feed— not only was it harder to read, but inconsistent with the Wall.
In a time when other websites are increasing font sizes, Facebook made the font on a major aspect of their site smaller. This change caught many of the ZURB team off-guard because Facebook is usually very consistent with its UI choices.
News Feed design - smaller font, extra line-break
Wall design - Bigger font, less line-breaks
On a site where the main purpose is to read status updates from friends, it would be good to make it easier, rather than harder, for people to read. The inconsistency between the News Feed and Wall pages is rather odd. It creates a slightly awkward moment when you go to a Wall page and the font gets bigger.
Even my grandma (an avid facebook user) noticed the changes. She said she has trouble reading the updates now that the font is smaller. After teaching her how to increase the font size of web pages she was fine, but when visiting a Wall page, she had to change her font back because it was too large.
We need to applaud the job Facebook has done over the years in becoming the leading social network in the world, but also question why some of these choices are being made. Facebook's Product Design Manager Julie Zhuo will be speaking at our upcoming Soapbox on Friday. So we'll get some insight into all the design decisions at Facebook! RSVP to our Soapbox before this Friday to hear what Julie has to say.