With Facebook giving its "Friends" icon a new look, gender equality takes another big step. The 1.4 billion users of the popular social media may have to look twice to see what the buzz is about Facebook's new design change.
CNN said that Facebook users are used to seeing the "Friends" icon in the upper right corner of the page as a male silhouette in front of a smaller one. The new change features the woman in front of the man and they are of the same size. The new groups icon will also have a change, with a woman icon between two men. It used to have a man in the center, between another man and woman.
In a report by the Huffington Post, Facebook design manager Caitlin Winner wrote that she was moved to do something about the size and order of the female silhouette in the "friends" icon. She also wrote that as a woman, educated at a women's college, it was hard not to read into the symbolism of the current icon; the woman was quite literally in the shadow of the man, she was not in a position to lean in.
"The lady icon needed a shoulder, so I drew it in — and so began my many month descent into the rabbit hole of icon design," Winner wrote in the Post.
She also updated both the woman and man's hair. The more prominent position of the woman in the "Friends" and "Groups" icons she said was a design choice because placing the male and female next to each other was confusing.
Sydney Morning Herald wrote that the change to these icons probably won't be noticed by the majority of FB users, but it could profoundly influence perceptions of women.
Without so much hullaballoo, Facebook implemented the changes for both desktop and mobile users this week.
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