From Fast Company:

Facebook hopes people will ask Graph Search different questions than they ask other search engines. The new product surfaces any combination of people, places, photos, and interests on command, and the more complex the query, the more precise its answer. Recruiters might be interested in queries such as “friends of friends who are engineers at Google.” Travelers might want to know “what cities have my friends visited this year.” And the search for “friends of friends who are single and . . . ” has endless permutations.

“One of the biggest design problems that we had to solve is how can we make it so people can ask these questions that can be very precise in a natural and intuitive way,” explained Mark Zuckerberg while presenting the new product at a press event on Tuesday. His next slide revealed a page of 39 different search filters. Closely packed into three rows on an otherwise blank interface, they looked anything but natural. “That’s my joke,” Zuckerberg said as a few reporters began to chuckle.

Russ Maschmeyer is the designer responsible for making sure that Zuckerberg’s joke doesn’t ever hit too close to home. He looks relieved after the event as we walk past a Lego art wall and a table laid out with champagne into a conference room attached to the Graph Social team’s office space. Shortly later, applause erupts outside as the product launches to its first handful of users, someone rings the famous launch gong, and I suddenly feel like someone who is preventing a father from witnessing his child’s birth... (continue reading)

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