Facebook 5 Redesign
FB5, the biggest change to Facebook in years. A ground-up redesign built around communities: cleaner, faster, less cluttered, and led by Groups. I prototyped the new experience, including the model unveiled on stage at F8.
The prototype Mark Zuckerberg presented on stage during the F8 2019 keynote.
Overview
At F8 2019, Facebook introduced "the New Facebook", a complete redesign of the app and website under the principle that the future is private, and that communities are as central as friends. The New Facebook is simpler, faster, more immersive, and puts Groups at the heart of the experience.
I built prototypes of the redesigned experience, including the interactive model Mark Zuckerberg demoed on stage during the keynote. Making the new navigation, the cleaner surfaces and the community-first flows tangible let leadership and teams feel the direction before it shipped to billions.
On stage, and on air
The same redesign, presented to developers at the keynote, and to the world in a national TV spot.
F8 2019 keynote, the on-stage prototype.
The redesign commercial, aired during Jimmy Kimmel Live.
What the redesign set out to do
A redesigned Groups tab and a personalised feed of activity put communities at the centre of the app.
A brighter, less cluttered interface, more white space, clearer type, and the familiar blue bar gone.
A rebuilt app that's quicker to move through, with the things people do most brought to the front.
A consistent design language rolling across the mobile app and the desktop website.
Prototyping a launch this size
A keynote demo has to be flawless and feel completely real, indistinguishable from the shipping product, running live in front of thousands of developers and a global press audience. The prototypes had to carry the full redesign: real navigation, real transitions, real content, with nothing that could break on stage.
That same fidelity made the models useful far beyond the keynote, as the reference the team designed against, and as the basis for how the redesign was communicated to the public.