I backend guy talking about frontend.
Yes. But will a frontend or designer guy question what he is doing in the same way?
UI redesigns are mostly a waste of time
131–140 of 290 posts
Re: UI redesigns are mostly a waste of time
#132I hate UI redesigns, absolutely hate them; From the end user point of view, and from 15+ years of webdesign, if its working why the hell are we fixing it?
Well I'll tell you why, since i asked; And its neither for the end user or designers benefit. Its for the non-user, or the not-yet-user, the people who were put off by the old design. We are like fish, that have been caught, wondering why the fisherman is throwing nets into other parts of the sea..
Michelangelo's David; Trying not to read too much into the cropping, it may be innocent enough.. Though sometimes i think we've reverted back to the dark ages catholic cleansing (chopping off of stone penises) mentality about such things.
Re: UI redesigns are mostly a waste of time
#133One of the best articles ever on HN. I agree with you 100%! I've often thought this with web pages or apps with a new design. Most of the time the new one has only 80% of the functionality the old design had. I stopped updating most apps on my phone because of that.
Re: UI redesigns are mostly a waste of time
#134Earlier quoted context omitted.
Coders can only code, so that's what they do. Even if there's no new features needed or the old software is working fine as is, they will keep refactoring. Gotta keep up with the trends.
That does actually happen. Just look at the JS ecosystem.
As a JavaScript developer I can say that does happen, but its usually due to bad decisions from insecurity coupled with chasing trends rather than any overt act to justify thy existence.
Re: UI redesigns are mostly a waste of time
#135Earlier quoted context omitted.
Redesigns tend to happen because someone in management decides they want to remake the UI in a way that appeals to them, whether or not it makes sense to anyone else. The MS ribbon was a classic redesign. It broke the standard menu metaphor and crashed productivity for no good reason. Flat design was in a similar league, but not quite as bad. Is that a button or a text element? How can anyone tell? Refinement is a mu…
> The MS ribbon was a classic redesign. It broke the standard menu metaphor and crashed productivity for no good reason. I thought I'd eventually get used to it. Nope. It's still significantly less productive than a standard menu.
Why’s that? Aren’t there shortcuts for about everything?
Re: UI redesigns are mostly a waste of time
#136Earlier quoted context omitted.
How does the Aesthetic Usability Effect account for the success of websites like Amazon, Wikipedia, Craigslist, Hacker News, classic Reddit, and LinkedIn, to name a few? There seems to be no correlation between aesthetic quality and use of these sites. I'm not sure what that indicates about the "usability" of these sites. If the goal is to maximize the number of users, it would seem that there is some evidence that a…
People aren't using those sites because of their UIs, but because of the content they offer. UI isn't the only factor, but it is a necessary factor.
> UI isn't the only factor, but it is a necessary factor.
Necessary for what (or for whom)?
Re: UI redesigns are mostly a waste of time
#137> To preface the article, I primarily work on, and prefer, back-end code. I've been involved in both web and software development for over 4 years now Cool, cool. To preface this comment, I'm a user experience designer, and I've been doing web software development and design for over 20 years. In reality, your conjecture turns out to be largely untrue. Visual design quality does have an impact. Main principle you wan…
I come bearing anecdata!
At my previous company, we did a minor visual design refresh of our ancient software because our sales data showed that one of the top objections cited by prospects was that the software looked old.
Although the visual design refresh did nothing for usability, it completely eliminated that objection and enabled our sales team to focus on how our software could improve our customers’ businesses and why it was better than our competitors’. The redesign improved conversion rates.
The redesign caused a bit of consternation among existing customers, but they got over it quickly. It had no observable effect on retention/churn.
If you were a PM on my team unable to substantiate why the work you’re scheduling helps the business (by making life better for customers or by reducing purchasing friction), you wouldn’t be on my team for long. These pointless redesigns are amateur-hour stuff.
Of course, there are other legitimate reasons to do a redesign, like maintainability and developer retention/happiness, but those are much riskier and even more difficult to justify.
Re: UI redesigns are mostly a waste of time
#138> To preface the article, I primarily work on, and prefer, back-end code. I've been involved in both web and software development for over 4 years now Cool, cool. To preface this comment, I'm a user experience designer, and I've been doing web software development and design for over 20 years. In reality, your conjecture turns out to be largely untrue. Visual design quality does have an impact. Main principle you wan…
> Users are more tolerant of __minor__ usability issues
Let's be honest, aesthetic-usability effect is too insignificant to ever prioritize aesthetics over usability and pretty much no company in the world can benefit from it. It's just a justification for producing pretty looking interfaces with awful UX, because UX is hard, a typical designer on the market likely can't even do it and eye candy is more easily sellable in hierarchical organizations, where everyone can impress their bosses all the way to the top.
Re: UI redesigns are mostly a waste of time
#139I am working in a startup and can definitely say that aesthetically better and modern designs help attract better talent (specifically techies). People judge by the looks.
Re: UI redesigns are mostly a waste of time
#140> To preface the article, I primarily work on, and prefer, back-end code. I've been involved in both web and software development for over 4 years now Cool, cool. To preface this comment, I'm a user experience designer, and I've been doing web software development and design for over 20 years. In reality, your conjecture turns out to be largely untrue. Visual design quality does have an impact. Main principle you wan…
Ive done this for more than 20 years too and i dont think the article is as wrong as you seem to think. In general designers seem to think that design is a much more important aapect than it actually is. Sucessful redesigns arent about improving the percieved value or respect the work outside your own department. They are about solving specific problems that hinder business to be optimal. When you start asking people to respect your work as a blanket statement, you lose mine.