From Wall to Timeline: the Perfect Facebook Timeline Layout

In Search of the Perfect Facebook Timeline Layout

When most of us first made our Facebook accounts, our profiles were called Walls. In the following years, Facebook has altered the layout of the wall over and over again and now it seems like it has finally settled on the current layout, now called the 'timeline'.

The First Walls

The early walls had a profile picture which was located on the top left hand corner. A lot of space was taken up by various tabs giving links to more info while even more space was used up by insignificant things. If you look at that layout now, it looks very archaic and dull.

Facebook then changed its layout and added a set of five photos at the top of the wall in addition to the profile photo. These pictures were designed to give the visitor an instant idea of the person's profile by showing them the most recent pictures of him. As this idea developed, many people chose to have pictures of things that interested them to decorate the top of their walls.

The Timeline Era

Then we came forward to the timeline era. The timeline layout cashes in on people's tendency to have a big, dominating photo on top of their profiles by introducing a cover photo. The profile picture stayed but the cover photo dominated the profile. The basic idea behind the timeline was for your Facebook profile to become a story of your life. A timeline in the center initially had posts on both of its sides giving a very timeline-y effect. However, it was kind of confusing so Facebook later simplified it by pushing the timeline to one side and giving us a simple straight column of posts arranged in chronological order.

The best feature of the timeline is that it utilizes every inch of space to make your profile look very beautiful. A dominating cover photo is above your profile picture and the tabs don't take up a lot of space and look bad as they once did. All the posts now focus on pictures and text is minimized to give as pretty a view as possible.

Easy Access

It has also become very simple to access old posts through the timeline. All you have to do is to click on 2010 and you will be immediately taken to five year old posts without having to scroll through everything in between.

The evolution of the Facebook profile has not only been very pleasing on the eye, it has also become very convenient, simple and easy to use.

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