→ Designing Facebook Places — T Inc.

An update with location vs. a check-in

This was a bit more difficult to resolve. Like I mentioned, many of our first iterations involved attaching your location to a status update. At first it seemed like the logical route. We didn’t need to create a different item in the Facebook ecosystem, and people could just quickly turn it on and all their status updates would be geocoded.

But it feels like more work. Sure, it could just be turned on, and then always be on, but that conflicts with the always sharing argument.

It can be argued that checking in is new and requires more work, but when you walk yourself through the process of a check-in versus a status update plus location it becomes a lot clearer.

In a status update plus location world you start with a status update. You first have to come up with something to say. It’s a blank canvas. You write something and then think, “Oh, I should add some location data to it.” If, say, it was sticky once you turned it on, you’d have to do the opposite. Should I share my location with this? All of a sudden a simple status update has a lot more choices. It’s not a quick and easy update anymore.

In a check-in world you’re automatically given a prompt. You start with the place you’re at, and you share your location with your friends. That’s it. At its most basic a check-in is something like, “Tom Watson is at Serpentine.” You don’t even have to write anything at all. Adding more information to this story is important for those reading it, and we encourage users to do so. At its core, it’s simple to start using. Simpler than a status update plus location.

It’s also important to emphasize a check-in as a prompt. It takes away the fear of the blank text box. There’s no pressure to write anything, and the act of checking in gives you something to write about.