I’ve been playing around with the new Facebook layout a lot this week, and while I initially did not like it, I think it’s slowly growing on me. Last week, Facebook announced that the new layout was available to every user, if they logged into a new location. Take a look for yourself by logging in here.

You’ll notice the layout is wider, accommodating for more whitespace, as well as a reorganized sidebar going from two columns in the old landing page to one robust column. The top navigation bar has been reduced to the bare necessities, while drop down navigation items have been increased in some areas.

The profile page has had considerable redesigning. The Wall and Mini-feed have been merged together and have been placed into primary positioning, while the other portions of your profile have been moved to other tabs.  You can’t move the wall, and in most cases, the wall is the active tab whenever navigating to a friend’s profile.

What’s Hot:

• Instead of random friends propagating in the friends box on my profile page, I can control the number as well as which friends display there. This helps for easy reference of friend profiles. While it’s not exactly a Top Friends application (designated friends always display in random order) it’s still better than completely randomized friend display.
• It is easier to post a new status message from your profile page with the bigger text field and prompt message, “what are you doing right now?” It looks like they stole a page from Twitter’s user interface, but is an improvement nonetheless.
• Adding media to your account is easier, with the Write a Note, Add Video, Add Photos, and Share Link prompts being prominently displayed on both your profile and landing pages. You can add media from your profile page, as opposed to going to separate pages for uploading, posting, etc.
• The Privacy settings allows you to view your profile from the perspective of any friend. Just type in the name of someone from your friends list, and you will enter a View Mode that allows you to see how that friend will see your profile. I think this option is great if you use the friends list privacy controls.

What’s Not So Hot:

• The redesign has disfigured some of my installed applications. For example, one of my favorite applications is Last.fm’s What I’m Listening To. On the new Facebook Boxes page, the application is useless due to what is likely poor HTML/CSS coding by the developer. It was probably passable HTML/CSS on the old Facebook, but the display breaks on the new layout. Developers, check all your application display modules on the new Facebook.
• Application management in general is confusing. There are so many controls in different places, it’s difficult to navigate and know what area controls what. How do I get an application to have its own tab?
• The navigation button for applications is annoying because it forces you to pick from the drop down menu. I would prefer to just click “Applications” and go to an applications landing page. Instead I have to choose something from this (very long, depending on how many apps you have installed) dropdown menu. Furthermore, the dropdown menu scrolls if you have a lot of application installed, which creeps into poor usability territory if you ask me.
• A lot of other pages are broken or don’t integrate well into the new format, mostly application canvas pages, fan and group pages, etc. Perhaps Facebook is slowly redesigning those pages.

What do you think about the new Facebook layout? Is it doing too much, or is it opening Facebook up for bigger and better things?