Facebook Messenger testing Call tab

There’s a lot of money to be made by being the go-to service for interpersonal communication. Just ask Google. Or Apple. Or Facebook. Maybe that’s why the aforementioned book of faces is putting so much work into their Messenger app. Since the app is slated to start supporting ads soon, Facebook wants to make sure that Messenger is your go-to resource for getting in touch with all of your friends.

After getting the aesthetics of their messaging app up to date with a full material overhaul, the developers are now working with a variety of new features. They test these features on a users to see how much engagement they get. Those that aren’t popular get cut, but those that users tend to like will undergo further development and eventually be made into permanent fixtures of the app. The latest of these test features is a call tab situated at the top of the main screen.

Previously, you had to actually access your message log with a user before the call button was made available. By moving the call option out of the message log, Facebook is making the call feature more readily accessible.

It kind plays a little bit into psycholinguistics a bit too, if you’re willing to go down that rabbit hole with me. We think the way that we speak, so in the English sentence “I want to call Bryan” the idea of calling comes before who you want to call. That’s why it feels more natural to just hit that phone icon at the bottom of your screen before selecting the contact you want to reach out to. Messenger previously had this order of events backwards, so by swapping it up, they may see more engagement for their call feature. Guess we’ll see.

Messenger has been under a lot of change in these recent months. Stay tuned with Android Authority to stay abreast of them all, and as always, let us know your thoughts in the comments below.