Facebook's Lite isn't just faster; it's the new Facebook design

Or at least it should be.

Facebook Lite claims to be horsepowers faster than the regular site. But regardless of the hundreds of kilobytes saved when browsing FB Lite, the design keeps changing; and getting better than "regular Facebook".

First off, everything important to you is at the top, like a section with upcoming events you're attending:

Event names are also SEO-friendly now, so you can find them in Google. Event pages themselves have been simplified quite a bit too:

While some parts of the Facebook Lite design are simpler, others are more complex, but not in a bad way. A normal comment like this on regular Facebook:

... now has much more detail on FB Lite:

They are finding ways to show more content with less code. And giving your social graph a chance to comment on it, right inline.

I started thinking to myself that FB Lite was a sandbox for Facebook designers to test the new layout once I saw this thick red border on the home page:

This is a technique front end web developers use called diagnostic styling.

Their auto-complete search box works 10x faster, and only shows the names:

They removed the Home tab all together. Now you click the Facebook logo to see your home feed:

The home page shows more detailed versions of the comments that people post on your content. Links, photos, all of it. Anything you "post", that gets commented on, you'll see it in your home feed.

Even something as simple as someone "liking" a note you wrote. FB Lite tries to give you a full preview:

The region on the page that usually houses advertisements is replaced by little quips and tips:

Chat has it's own popup application now. I wonder if Friendfeed is developing it because it's fast.

I think if Facebook converted their regular site to this design, no users would complain. What do you think?

If you want to make Facebook Lite your default experience, check out this article.