Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I can't think of a single popular site redesign that actually made the site better. Seriously? How about Google.com? Google Maps? Gmail? Apple.com? CNN? Uber? Surely you must believe at least some of those made the site better...
The line you quoted does seem to go too far (I'm sure there are some redesigns out there that improved things), but your listed examples really compound it. Google.com has only ever had tiny tweaks, yet if you read the recent HN comment thread on Instant Search it's enough to show that even these small changes were significant regressions. Apple.com, as has been mentioned, is a different case. The rest have pretty ca…
It did evolve, and yes, Google constantly experiments with/ tweaks it, as a matter of fact. I never claimed that sudden radical changes are a good idea - they are very risky, at the very least. And generate dissatisfaction even when done right.
> The rest have pretty categorically disimproved with each iteration. I doubt many would disagree here.
What? That's crazy. Both gmail and google maps have radically improved over their original versions. You're of course free to disagree, since these sorts of things are subjective; but I'm confident that you won't find a majority of users to share that opinion.