
I'm definitely liking the little transient prompts that Facebook is employing to educate people about their new interface. FB faces an interesting GUI problem in that they're a web site that has a user base ranging from first timers and very occasional users (both of whom see it as a "transient" application) and daily users for whom it's a "soverign" application that often stays open all day long. The prompts allow FB to make the new interface a little easier to learn, but once you acknowledge them, they don't show up any more.
This technique has been around in software applications for a long time, but you don't see it as often on web sites, perhaps because fewer sites ever make the transition to sovereign status, or because they do but are so simple it's unecessary (e.g. Twitter.)
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