Comments on: Over-optimization: A core concept behind “How to Fail”

By: Change or be changed. | Taylor Davidson

Change or be changed. | Taylor Davidson — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 08:48:22 +0000

[...] on the topic, whenever I read about complex adaptive systems, I keep thinking about the danger of over-optimization and the impossibility of [...]

By: Taylor Davidson

Taylor Davidson — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 00:06:32 +0000

The redesign hasn't gotten a lot of love from the web… but I don't think it's a case of sudden or abrupt over-optimisation.

Facebook has encountered stiff opposition to change from their users before; my uneducated guess is that they had a plan (or at least a point of view) on how to execute massive change. Perhaps they decided that it would be better to execute mass change rather than piecemeal change drip-by-drip. Perhaps incremental change would be a lot harder to execute internally. Many new users don't even know what the “old Facebook” even looked like, and maybe the new UI is written more for the broader mass audience rather than the early adopters.

I don't know: I don't follow the inside-outs of Facebook terribly closely…

By: JY

JY — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 01:39:09 +0000

Sometimes I feel I may be the only one who thought Facebook improved their site signiificantly.

By: Matt Goldberg

Matt Goldberg — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 13:17:23 +0000

Over-optimization is another great point. I might be taking this too far, but isn't the complete overhaul of the Facebook UI a great example? Wasn't that too much optimization at once, creating less-than-possitive reactions? Thanks for the link-up!