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Users hate change

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Re: Users hate change

#51

Post by redbeard0x0a »

_nalply wrote: post #17

My wife has handicaps (deaf and cerebral palsy). She gets nervous and mistrustful if something has changed. She hates updates and asked me why the companies can't let the software alone. She has a point. Updates and nagging dialogs have a cost which is higher for non-IT people. Imagine your old neighbor being confused if he should allow that update or not and being stressed about because these update requests don't s…

The best analogy of finished software I have heard is this:

> Software is done, like mowing the lawn is done.

We live in an imperfect world, if we want to keep ourselves safe and prevent bad actors out of our data/technology. Updates are a part of the process. You don't mow your lawn once, it has to be maintained. Which is the same as software.

This is something that we would be all better for if we could teach this concept to everybody so that updates are just a normal part of life.

Re: Users hate change

#52

Post by TeMPOraL »

rjf72 wrote: post #41
DougN7 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Keeping bean counters shouldn’t be the goal, but everyone does like to keep eating. What do you suggest for keeping the business healthy while not making things terrible?

One might argue that the current system is making things much more terrible than any alternative. Software as a service makes sense for some things. But for the majority of things its now being used for, its only purpose is rent seeking. Cryptocurrencies offer an interesting balance between rent seeking and consumer friendliness. You use a piece of software, it mines for coins which are transferred to the company. Th…

> Cryptocurrencies offer an interesting balance between rent seeking and consumer friendliness.

Not when you include performance in the "consumer friendliness" side. Existing software is already way too bloated and keeps assuming it's the only thing users run; cryptomining would only exacerbate that effect. Especially that to earn a measurable amount of money over the lifetime of the product, your typical chat app using this model would have to run CPU and GPU at 100% load.

Re: Users hate change

#53

Post by bryanlarsen »

diggan wrote: post #29
mrunkel wrote: 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

That was feasible in a world where every computer was air-gapped because there was no such thing as the Internet. Now every app needs to stay up to date for security reasons, even if it doesn't directly use the internet itself.

Re: Users hate change

#54

Post by bschne »

mrunkel wrote: post #25
flohofwoe wrote: post #5

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…

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

I'd argue that it diverges not only across different users, but is also variable over time - as other tools, customer expectations, user expectations, paradigms of interfaces and human-computer interactions change, there is some amount of new features and changes which needs to be done not to lose touch.

Of course if we could isolate the whole domain the application fits in from external influence there might be a stable optimum feature set, but I don't think that's how it works in practice.

Re: Users hate change

#55

Post by TeMPOraL »

johnday wrote: 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'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.

Are you using the same Facebook as I do? Every time they rearranged more than a single button there was an uproar. People do care, but there's exactly nothing they can do except whining. Facebook doesn't care, and people won't leave because their friends are there.

Re: Users hate change

#56

Post by luckylion »

redbeard0x0a wrote: post #51
_nalply wrote: post #17

My wife has handicaps (deaf and cerebral palsy). She gets nervous and mistrustful if something has changed. She hates updates and asked me why the companies can't let the software alone. She has a point. Updates and nagging dialogs have a cost which is higher for non-IT people. Imagine your old neighbor being confused if he should allow that update or not and being stressed about because these update requests don't s…

The best analogy of finished software I have heard is this: > Software is done, like mowing the lawn is done. We live in an imperfect world, if we want to keep ourselves safe and prevent bad actors out of our data/technology. Updates are a part of the process. You don't mow your lawn once, it has to be maintained. Which is the same as software. This is something that we would be all better for if we could teach this…

Updates aren't a normal part of life though, they sometimes happen to break your system because they introduce bugs. There's a calculation of perceived probability of trouble because of updating vs expected gain from the update.

Re: Users hate change

#57

Post by mikro2nd »

yboris wrote: post #49
karrotwaltz wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Every change causes people to question why they use the site in the first place. I was using twitter to follow very few, high quality feeds, and with this new update it was made clear that the intended usage is the opposite. No more twitter for me, I'm back to good old RSS feeds. Beside that, I can't believe anyone would find the new design better than the old one on a monitor, the menu has more presence than the a…

The Twitter redesign (last week or so?) has been wonderful for me: it keeps your place in navigation, allowing you to look at a tweet thread and go back to the place you were before. Previously on Twitter, after any navigation you'd lose your place, having to scroll (and reload all the previously-seen content) very far if you were down far.

On the other hand, every time I have been back since the changeover, they reset my feed to 'algorithmically chosen tweets' (or whatever they call it) instead of the "by time posted" option I invariably want and choose. It's gotten so I'm pretty unlikely to go back to Twitter now, since along with this major annoyance, it's ugly, cluttered to the point of near unusable, and all-round annoying to me. So long and thanks for all the tweety birds, I guess.

Re: Users hate change

#58

Post by TeMPOraL »

redbeard0x0a wrote: post #51
_nalply wrote: post #17

My wife has handicaps (deaf and cerebral palsy). She gets nervous and mistrustful if something has changed. She hates updates and asked me why the companies can't let the software alone. She has a point. Updates and nagging dialogs have a cost which is higher for non-IT people. Imagine your old neighbor being confused if he should allow that update or not and being stressed about because these update requests don't s…

The best analogy of finished software I have heard is this: > Software is done, like mowing the lawn is done. We live in an imperfect world, if we want to keep ourselves safe and prevent bad actors out of our data/technology. Updates are a part of the process. You don't mow your lawn once, it has to be maintained. Which is the same as software. This is something that we would be all better for if we could teach this…

That's conflating maintenance with change.

There are really two distinct types of updates - one that's patching up security holes and ensures the software keeps running on modern systems; the other adds and removes features. They ought to be distinct.

The lawn analogy is not apt, because software left alone does not change at all. It's one of the most stable things in the universe. The environment changes, slowly, and at some point adaptations are needed.

Re: Users hate change

#59

Post by _nalply »

redbeard0x0a wrote: post #51
_nalply wrote: post #17

My wife has handicaps (deaf and cerebral palsy). She gets nervous and mistrustful if something has changed. She hates updates and asked me why the companies can't let the software alone. She has a point. Updates and nagging dialogs have a cost which is higher for non-IT people. Imagine your old neighbor being confused if he should allow that update or not and being stressed about because these update requests don't s…

The best analogy of finished software I have heard is this: > Software is done, like mowing the lawn is done. We live in an imperfect world, if we want to keep ourselves safe and prevent bad actors out of our data/technology. Updates are a part of the process. You don't mow your lawn once, it has to be maintained. Which is the same as software. This is something that we would be all better for if we could teach this…

It's true that updates are neccessary.

However I think it's not about teaching people. What about children and the elderly? You can't teach them.

After all, are computers and software specialized tools for professionals? This has not been true for the majority since the millennium the least.

I have to admit that I don't have an easy answer. I just see that the relentless changes and updates are not well received by many people and I am afraid they aren't completely off in this case.

Re: Users hate change

#60

Post by overcast »

vbezhenar wrote: post #34
Finnucane wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Password manager integration is a pretty monumental feature I couldn't live without.
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