Facebook is known for switching up the design of its users’ profiles without notice, and today is no different: some visitors to the popular social networking site will find that the company has changed how it displays their friends’ personal information.
Up until this week, the information laid out in a user’s “About” section was displayed as a two-column wall of text with a bunch of information including their work history and where they lived. But now, Facebook has begun rolling out a change to the section that puts that information in a more compact form.
The “Overview” tab displays key information about a person at a glance: contact info, where they work, where they went to school, where they live, and if they’re in a relationship with someone. Users can also see more detailed views of a person’s work and education history, where they have lived, basic personal information and their family.
A user’s favorite quotes and written “about” section are shelved, perhaps tellingly, in the last tab, labeled “Details.” That seems like a fairly clear message: Facebook wants to promote users’ structured personal information, rather than bog down profiles with walls of text.
It’s unclear how far the roll-out of this feature reaches. Every person in my social network who I contacted already has the new design. It’s likely that some of the company’s more than 1.3 billion monthly active users won’t have access to it yet, though.
This new design is being rolled out five months after the company announced a new look for users’ News Feeds. This change probably won’t affect users as much, since I can’t remember the last time that I actually paid attention to this section in my own profile or somebody else’s.
It also doesn’t look like this change will affect Facebook’s mobile apps, which almost 400 million people use as the exclusive means of connecting to the social network. Still, people who want to ensure they have a well-coiffed Facebook profile will want to take notice of the new design change.
A Facebook representative did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
