We programmers look at difficulties users have dealing with large volumes of data and think, aha! I can solve this by giving them ways to add metadata to those data, so it can be more easily browsed/filtered/faceted/whatever. (We think that because programmers have an analytical cast of mind, which we then extrapolate from -- this would be useful for me, we figure, therefore it would be useful for anyone.) So we build these elaborate systems for storing and managing metadata, and then build elaborate UIs to expose those systems to the user.
Our system goes out to the users, and as long as those users are people like us -- analytical types -- it works OK. But then it goes out beyond that to a general audience, and suddenly we discover a new problem: namely that most users don't want to add metadata and simply will not do it, even if by doing so they could realize huge productivity gains. It doesn't matter how useful the metadata would be to them, to them adding metadata is work, and worse, it's nerd work of a kind they feel fundamentally uncomfortable with and unequipped to deal with. So they just don't do it. And they won't do it, no matter how hard you try to sell them on it.
That was the problem with "circles" in G+: not that it was a bad idea to let people split up their feeds, but that having multiple feeds required them to add metadata (creating circles, naming them, adding people to them, periodically removing people from them, etc.), and people just didn't want to do that. So they didn't.
It's not impossible to build systems that categorize data to make it more comprehensible, but if you want them to work, they have to do so in some way that doesn't put the burden on the user to keep everything correctly tagged/categorized/faceted/whatever. Because they just will not do that, no matter how many carrots you dangle.
I think it is a way to avoid admitting that we fail at ux innso many ways and in even more spectacular ways when we try to be smart and remove options.
In other words, dividing the world into "smart people" (e.g. us) and "dumb people" (e.g. everybody who isn't us) isn't productive. Realizing that there are people out there who think about these things differently than we do, and taking the time to learn how they think and build solutions that respect that, can be.
Thanks for clarifying. I guess we more or less agree somehow then.
They're already attempting to optimize out the broken part of the working system. End users that just literally can't or can't be bothered.
Guess my disappointment.
One thing I think about is tagging. Arguably circles is a private configuration. If I tag someone in a picture I posted to my Family Facebook Circle, but who on their end would see it on the timeline?
I never used G+ enough to know how it handled that scenario.
My intuition wants to tell me it's tricky things like that which piled up in Facebook's mind when evaluating whether to copy them. They've copied many competitors and social media outlets especially if it fit easily.
Privacy features isn't one of their strengths.
Same here.
I also hope circles and collections will come to the fediverse. Pixelfed already had circles as one of four options for what to focus on in coming iterations.
(Probably the most major other change was I fought the CSS to make the background 100% black for OLED power savings.)
I'm told there also is a deeper theming system and some shared themes as Ruby gems. I haven't explored that personally because I'm using a shared host and so far I've been happy with the simple custom CSS overrides.
Programming- or gaming-related: Twitter
"Fit for mass consumption": Facebook
Personal: Facebook (with privacy settings activated)