SOCIAL NETWORK Facebook has announced the first major overhaul to the design of its 'Like' and 'Share' buttons.
The Like and Share buttons have undergone some fairly significant cosmetic surgery, with the thumbs up icon, previously synonymous with letting the world know you're a fan of Justin Bieber or badger culling, relegated to a bit part.
The new design features a richer "Facebook blue" and the Facebook logo takes precedence over the previous thumbs up icon, which now appears only as an added extra after you've "liked" something, and then only at the whim of the website developer, who can choose from several designs.
The announcement on the Facebook Developers' Blog was accompanied by enthusiastic burbling from the Facebook team.
Ray He, who told readers that Facebook had already seen a significant upturn in traffic where the new design was tested, said that some users commented that they were still waiting for the new version of the News Feed to roll out to them, let alone any new icons.
He also cited a recent Shareoholic Report that revealed the Like and Share buttons combined are seen a total of 22 billion times every day on more than 7.5 million websites.
Facebook will roll out the new design to existing users over the coming weeks. The webpage also provides case studies on the use of the buttons to further inspire developers.
In one case study a product manager at the Huffington Post said, "We place the Like and Share buttons right below the headline of our articles and in a persistent left side bar that stays with the user when they scroll down the page. We want to give people every opportunity to like and share content, and, at this point, I like to think we've made it hard not to engage in social actions."
And yet, somehow we manage. µ
