Facebook's "like button" understandably leaves people wanting more. Though clicking "like" has come to mean so many different things, sometimes people wish they could more specifically express those things without having to leave an actual comment. The introduction of a "dislike" button probably will never make it into production (as it has on YouTube), but a Facebook engineer said the company once considered adding a "sympathize" option for situations in which users post about sensitive topics like the funeral arrangements of a loved one, The Atlantic reported.
Most of the time, however, "liking" something expresses the appropriate type of positivity Facebook seeks. "Sympathizing" may not be common enough for an entirely new button. Yet, sympathy and "liking," especially given all like has come to mean, might be sufficient. Is sympathy the only emotion missing?
But the project could be lengthy. For some perspective, re-designing the "like button," which Facebook did ever so slightly in early November, took over six months; because the social media site is so widely used, design specialists had to make the new button compatible with hundreds of different languages and browsers. Based on that, adding an entirely new button could actually be a quicker process, for engineers won't have to worry about unclean finishes as it did during its "like" updates. Likely, it will be still be a major undertaking.
More buttons could just make Facebook messier and devalue the power of "like," which product manager Ling Bao called "one of Facebook's most valuable brand assets." Plus, the company already added a "like plus share" option at the same time it was redesigning "like."
"Maybe two options are actually worse than one," wrote Atlantic columnist Robinson Meyer. "Maybe one word-'like'-can't say it all, but can say enough."
A sympathize button or something like it could emerge at Facebook's next Hackathon, an all-night event in which programmers construct prototypes of new projects they don't have time for during regular hours. Past events have birthed Facebook chat, friend suggester, and the type-ahead feature in search, among other innovations.
