Facebook Design Getting All Hipster

My guess is they're trying to see more edgy than they actually are.

Well, that explains a lot. Every time I attempt to accomplish something on Facebook, one of two things happens: (1) the interface has changed in some way or (2) the feature is broken. Just last week, every "Load More" link was broken in Google Chrome (but worked in Firefox). The week before, I wasn't able to upload photos repeatedly failed, but the iPhoto integration worked fine.

Agile development is great, but Facebook is a mature product: I wish they would keep the breaking to internal test builds.

The spirit of that slogan is more like "Move fast and don't be afraid to disrupt established patterns". The intention is to give employees licence to think out of the box and try out lots of new ideas, without being bogged down by what has gone before. Everyone I've talked to (I personally don't have a lot of experience at jobs outside of Facebook and academia) agrees that Facebook offers you unparalleled freedom to go forth and have impact, unencumbered by red tape and naysayers.

That's not to defend API breakages or incomplete documentation and the pain it causes developers -- I'm not directly involved, but I know that we're definitely trying to get that turned around and fix some of the issues with Facebook Platform.

From my experience with their platform, they are really proud of it. The full slogan is "Move fast, break things, oh shit it broke, fix it, start breaking again". Is there a therapist for websites?

I used to maintain some fb social plugins for a site, and every Wednesday they would break.

Good question. I'm not sure what the recent momentum is about, but I remember two widely-linked stories about "hipsters" and "hipsterdom" back in 2007 and 2008:

http://newyork.timeout.com/things-to-do/this-week-in-new-yor...

http://www.adbusters.org/magazine/79/hipster.html

It's interesting to note that "hipster" really started ramping up after "emo" had started sliding downward:

http://trends.google.com/trends?q=emo%2C+hipster&ctab=0&...

I compare the two because they are both subcultural labels that have become terms of abuse in fairly recent years.

if you'd like to cycle through the background images, go to the site and paste this in your URL bar:

  javascript:document.getElementsByTagName('a')[0].onclick=function(e){e.preventDefault();document.body.id=switcher[(switcher.indexOf(document.body.id)+1)%switcher.length]};void(0);

now each time you click the facebook logo, the next background image will load

edit: in related news, it looks like Chrome won't let you paste javascript links into your URL bar. you may need to manually type the 'javascript:' part at the beginning.

I could read the text fine. It seems like they even set it up so that the text turns black or white based on the lightness or darkness of the current background.

That was my first thought too... "if they are looking to appeal to people who want to fix stuff... they are doing it right".

Otherwise I'd say that's a minor fail by the designer of that page.

Whoa, refreshed the page and the image changed!

Checked the source and found this, haha:

<!--

  Facebook - The Deck Ad (Summer 2011)
  ====================================
 
  If you're looking at our html, this is a good thing.
  You should reach out to our design team recruiter directly.
 
  Drop a line to Greg Hoy at: Greg Hoy <greghoy@fb.com>
 

-->

Clearly ahead of your time, my friend. If Facebook does it, it's cool...