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Users hate change

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31–40 of 315 posts

Re: Users hate change

#31
post #14

My pet theory is that every software product has a "peak version". Before that peak version, the product is not yet in a complete state, and it is fairly obvious, both for the developer and user, what features are missing. Once the peak version is reached, new features are not added because they improve the product, but to justify selling the product again to existing customers, and to 'keep the team busy'. Instead o…

There should be an award of shame for this and I nominate Visio 2003.

Word for Dos 5.0. If you are old like me, you may remember thinking this was a pretty good word processor, and when Word 6.0 came out, it seemed a bloated mess in comparison. It's been downhill ever since.

Mac OS X 10.6.8. It was good, and stable, and nothing that has come after has really added value to the product.

Re: Users hate change

#32
post #29
post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with your theory is that "peak version" is different for every user of the software.

The solution is that every deployable version of the service should be usable on it's own and users should be able to chose exactly what version they are locked on to. Or they can choose to live on bleeding-edge and always get the latest updates. Wishful thinking maybe

It's called long term support. And it's not cheap.

Re: Users hate change

#33
It's interesting to compare the user responses to updates by Facebook and Twitter respectively.

Facebook's UI has changed significantly over the last 15 or so years. Features have appeared and disappeared, boxes have been arranged and rearranged. But there's rarely a big fuss beyond it getting a little slower each time (roughly commensurate with consumer hardware speedup, in fact). People don't really notice and they don't really care. People originally balked at the reactions feature, calling it gauche and unnecessary - but now people use it as part of the language of the platform without a second thought.

Compare with Twitter. Every UI "overhaul" they've ever done has been received in a hugely negative way. The only change which has been remotely successful was the 140/280 switch.

The difference is threefold:

First, Twitter's UI changes have been big. They skip over incremental changes and go straight for gigantic overhauls. This requires people re-learn the language of the site completely every couple of years.

Second, these changes have invariably been coupled with user-hostile design decisions. The obvious one this time round is the automatic switching to "AI sorted timeline" on every visit. No wonder people have an almost pavlovian response to the design changes.

And thirdly, while Facebook's changes are usually to accommodate changing usage patterns, new features, or new hardware, Twitter's updates are very transparently pointless. They offer zero improvement to the user experience for any sector of the market. Every change causes people to question why they use the site in the first place.

Gosh I didn't expect this to be such a long rant. Turns out I have a lot to say about the terrible design decisions made over in Twitter land. The conclusion is this: people don't hate change. They hate change which makes their lives worse than the status quo would have done. It's not complicated.

Re: Users hate change

#34
post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There should be an award of shame for this and I nominate Visio 2003.

Word for Dos 5.0. If you are old like me, you may remember thinking this was a pretty good word processor, and when Word 6.0 came out, it seemed a bloated mess in comparison. It's been downhill ever since. Mac OS X 10.6.8. It was good, and stable, and nothing that has come after has really added value to the product.

iOS 6. I'm using latest iOS and the only useful feature for me is fingerprint recognition and that is more about hardware. They added tons of new features but I wouldn't miss any of those features.

Re: Users hate change

#35
post #33

It's interesting to compare the user responses to updates by Facebook and Twitter respectively. Facebook's UI has changed significantly over the last 15 or so years. Features have appeared and disappeared, boxes have been arranged and rearranged. But there's rarely a big fuss beyond it getting a little slower each time (roughly commensurate with consumer hardware speedup, in fact). People don't really notice and they…

> Twitter's updates are very transparently pointless. They offer zero improvement to the user experience for any sector of the market.

The only improvement seems to be that the new UI supports multiple accounts - something which I solve by using different Chrome profiles, much safer.

Re: Users hate change

#36
post #29
post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with your theory is that "peak version" is different for every user of the software.

The solution is that every deployable version of the service should be usable on it's own and users should be able to chose exactly what version they are locked on to. Or they can choose to live on bleeding-edge and always get the latest updates. Wishful thinking maybe

I think some people around here, most especially the package-manager-uber-alles crowd and the security-for-the-security-god types [0], will be very upset you said this, but I agree.

Why shouldn't I use software that works best for me, even if it isn't the latest and greatest version? Why shouldn't I be able to use multiple versions of the same software as though they were different products because they do different things well? As I recall this was expected behavior in the before times, in the long long ago, when internet wasn't yet a thing.

[0] Oh, also the web-all-the-things! people.

Re: Users hate change

#37
New incoming users love change, it can sometimes be the reason they even came to your platform. Always remember the user you serve.

Re: Users hate change

#38
I really, really, really like Snow Leopard[1], but there are a some features they’ve added that I really like, such as autosaving, fullscreen, and word lookup.

I’d still go back to Snow Leopard if I could, I don’t quite agree Apple has added nothing of value. There are things I would miss.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20224370

Re: Users hate change

#39
post #33

It's interesting to compare the user responses to updates by Facebook and Twitter respectively. Facebook's UI has changed significantly over the last 15 or so years. Features have appeared and disappeared, boxes have been arranged and rearranged. But there's rarely a big fuss beyond it getting a little slower each time (roughly commensurate with consumer hardware speedup, in fact). People don't really notice and they…

Facebook is so slow on my Chromebook that I stopped using the main site and use mbasic.facebook.com

What was once a performant chat+newsfeed app has gradually become a slow elephant.

Re: Users hate change

#40
Guess this is related to the abomination called "new Twitter UI". While the redesign is an abomination, with Twitter especially there is another thing in play: they do not listen to or consult their users in any way, no matter if ordinary users or third party app developers.

Third party developers want to be able to use all the features available on the platform - especially when it comes to DMs, polls and media. But Twitter has locked down all that stuff and introduced ridiculous rate limits on that what remains open - to the point that writing a full featured client is not worth the time any more.

Users want to get rid of harrassment - the calls of "Twitter, ban the f...ing Nazis" are years old. Instead, Twitter still doesn't even allow banning quote-tweeting - meaning, a large account quote-tweets a small-ish account and the followers of the large account then dog-pile on the quoted tweet. Mass flagging exploits automated AI filters leading to (especially) sex workers being automatically banned, with next to zero accountability for Twitter and sometimes requiring court orders. But instead of working on real pain points like the ones I just described, Twitter rather works away silently on a crap design, forces it onto their users overnight and doesn't even give an option to opt out or to submit feedback.

Of course users feel like they're being treated like shit.

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