Designing for Facebook: the MyBand Application Redesign
Jillian Kuhn, Former Viget
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Viget doesn't just do web sites -- we also design all sorts of other cool products and applications, from mobile to Facebook.
As an example, we worked with ReverbNation, a start-up that's become one of the biggest musician sites on the web, to redesign the user interface for its MyBand Facebook application. With 2.5 million active users, including musicians from Sean Kingston and Tenacious D to the garage band down the street, MyBand aims to keep fans engaged with an artist's latest songs, photos, videos, and tour dates. It also provides a path to purchase merchandise or sign up for a mailing list.
The MyBand application displays a great amount of diverse information -- so we needed to create a visual hierarchy that reduces clutter while making all this information easy to digest.
Although the Facebook platform allows for a lot of flexibility in design and layout, this new design closely mirrors the standard Facebook design in color, icons, typography, and other visual aspects. This lends a certain credibility to this third-party application that it might not have with a unique design. The more MyBand resembles the Facebook brand, the more likely users are to trust it as an "official" part of the Facebook experience.
Also, throughout the project, we were aware of upcoming changes to Facebook's layouts -- specifically with regards to page width. Through a careful layout and longer scroll, we created a fluid, flexible interface that could easily accommodate Facebook's constantly evolving layouts.
A special thanks goes out to ReverbNation for a fun project that let us think outside the standard "web site" box!