UI redesigns are mostly a waste of time (2019)

Post by wasteduniverse » Wed, Apr 17, 2024, 6:49 PM UTC

proc0 wrote: post #34

wasteduniverse wrote: post #4

Can anyone here explain why YouTube (namely the mobile interface) goes through a total redesign every 1-2 years? Is it just to earn some unknown manager another promotion? I'm getting really sick of it at this point.

I think people are being a bit cynical with that take, although it's not completely unfounded. There are other factors like new technologies that are overall better, and also restructuring of teams due to people leaving and/or layoffs. What you end up with is a codebase or parts of the codebase that accumulate "damage" (or increase in entropy), and sometimes the easiest thing to do is to start something from scratch…

Post by kevincox » Wed, Apr 17, 2024, 7:51 PM UTC

deadghost wrote: post #37

Reddit comes to mind. Who knows how much money they spent on their redesign with users hating it and actively choosing to use their old site design YEARS after they rolled out their new design. I also run a site and when I ask people what I should improve next, nearly no one says design, even when the design is clearly not very good. An example of a site that never changes is Craigslist. I can't even recall the last…

Post by Bjartr » Wed, Apr 17, 2024, 8:47 PM UTC

kevincox wrote: post #43

deadghost wrote: post #37

Reddit comes to mind. Who knows how much money they spent on their redesign with users hating it and actively choosing to use their old site design YEARS after they rolled out their new design. I also run a site and when I ask people what I should improve next, nearly no one says design, even when the design is clearly not very good. An example of a site that never changes is Craigslist. I can't even recall the last…

To be fair Reddit needs a redesign. The existing UI is pretty good on desktop but sucks with smaller displays. Of course their last redesign was so bad that they are already working on a new one: https://sh.reddit.com/ . It seems better so far, but lets hope it ships before they turn off old.reddit.com

Post by kevincox » Wed, Apr 17, 2024, 8:50 PM UTC

Bjartr wrote: post #45

kevincox wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair Reddit needs a redesign. The existing UI is pretty good on desktop but sucks with smaller displays. Of course their last redesign was so bad that they are already working on a new one: https://sh.reddit.com/ . It seems better so far, but lets hope it ships before they turn off old.reddit.com

> but sucks with smaller displays. That's the system working as intended. Why would they invest in making the site better on smaller displays (i.e. mobile) when their priority is to get you to use the app? From the normal not long term enough business perspective, doing so could only cannabalize those conversions to the app that would have otherwise happened. And conversion rate from web to app is almost certainly a…

Post by chownie » Thu, Apr 18, 2024, 2:26 AM UTC

jdbernard wrote: post #11

robertlagrant wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What ideology is driving this?

I assume OP didn't mean that a single overarching ideology was driving all if these changes, but rather that each of them individually is ideologically driven (and therefore immune to questioning). They all seem to be directly counter to the end-user's desires but are off-limits to redesign.