Facebook has changed the Application List again.  Instead of having the Applications list accessible in the header they have moved access to the chat bar.  The presentation looks alot like the Microsoft Start bar but I’m not really sure its an improvement.  I think alot of people pretty much ignore the chat bar ( I haven’t been on FB chat in months ) so its not an ideal location.

There seems to be a common trend with the Facebook re-design to combine items of low value ( ie Chat ) with items of high value ( ie Application navigation ).  We saw the same thing with the new wall where mini-feed items ( low value ) were combined with wall items ( high value ).   I’m not a huge fan of this paradigm and at minimum I think it creates confusion for users.  Areas where they could previously ignore are now much more relevent.

The other big concern I have with this design is the size and the location of the bookmark option.  Instead of being in the top ( where booking is done in every browser on the planet ) its now down at the bottom an relatively small.  Bookmarking is very important for applications going forward because its how users will remember to interact with applications.  I hope Facebook reconsiders this design location or provides applications with a “Bookmark Application” FBML object to make it easier for users.