Facebook's new Timeline is in testing Phase

New looks to Profile

Many of you might still not like the new super-graphical Timeline look of Facebook, The company  is ready to change it once again. Not at a big note but still a small addition to there previous looks.

Looking at the profile of TPM's Carl Franzen, who already has the new Timeline (apparently in beta testing), the design shift is much cleaner (click up top to enlarge). The largest change is moving your name and vital stats (college, workplace, home location, etc) from underneath the cover photo to right on top of it—superimposed in white text. The image boxes that used to display your friends and most recent photo are now collapsed into a plain text rectangle—although the latter has already been made redundant with a big image grid at the top of the Timeline itself. Essentially, the entire upper row of the profile is squished, and the "What's on your mind" field gets a big visual priority boost.

It's "cleaner," but that's not always a good thing! Our first eyebrow raise is with the cover flow text—what if your picture has a lot of white space? Or what if it's something more complex than a picture of a cat? White text isn't legible spread across just any graphic, and this could lead to some serious readability problems, although there is a light drop shadow behind the lettering. It might not be enough—don't plan taking your cover photo from that recent ski trip if this new look goes wide.

The loss of seeing your most recently tagged photo and a handful of your friends also makes the tip of the Timeline seem a bit more sterile compared to the OG version from this past fall—and is anyone really creating "Life Events" that would fill out the new Summary tab?

Facebook is probably considering these questions riiiiiight now, and depending on the answers, this overhaul may not ever see light outside of a select few: Franzen says "Facebook declined to specify how many user profiles the new test would involve, as well as whether the new look would eventually be the standard for the website."