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UI redesigns are mostly a waste of time

debugandrelease.blogspot.com

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Re: UI redesigns are mostly a waste of time

#151

Post by christophilus »

calinet6 wrote: post #13

> 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 do tend to avoid sites that look too old. But I also avoid sites that are too slow. I'm no longer a Gmail user for this reason, for example, and I'm only a Reddit user because (thank God) there's still old.reddit.com. Can I just advocate for one thing? Make performance the #1 priority of any redesign (or at least a very, very high priority).

Re: UI redesigns are mostly a waste of time

#152

Post by hopler »

ascar wrote: post #122
calinet6 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll concede "most people are of average idiocy" and cite core principles of statistics and the meanings of average and most. But yes, you're right, happens all the time. Less so with most of the large scale more popular redesigns people tend to think of when writing articles like this about tools they actually use; the team at Atlassian, for example, is not made of idiots, neither at Slack, Google, Twitter, or other…

I have the feeling they force some UI and especially icon redesign with every new Android version. Not because it's necessarily or actually looks better, but just to make it different. It's mildly annoying to me. Especially since some app icons now have ugly white boarders (galaxy s9 with android 8 and even worse in 9/oneui).

The white borders was a gimmick to support some new transparency feature, but since Android half-does everything, it doesn't quite work. Android's openness saves the day, you can install 3rd party launcher with icon pack plugins

Re: UI redesigns are mostly a waste of time

#153

Post by dhbradshaw »

dhbradshaw wrote: post #149

Great UI is extremely valuable. The challenge is that one of the qualities of a great UI is that it's stable. The UI is the interface between your app and the customer. It's like an API. No one arbitrarily changes APIs and expects it to go well. But, perhaps because people are slightly more adaptable than code, UI gets changed without warning or choice all the time. This is a unilateral break in the implicit contract…

When considering UI changes, it's worth thinking how people use your app. Some apps are used only occasionally, so that effectively everyone is a beginner every time. In this case, there's room for rapid UI evolution and improvement.

Other apps are deeper and more feature rich and will be used by a given person for hours each day. You'll have to be very careful in changing these apps if you don't want irate users.

Re: UI redesigns are mostly a waste of time

#154

Post by badfrog »

jslabovitz wrote: post #8

> You don't use Google maps because it looks nice, you use it because it tells you where to go to get good tacos. You don't use Facebook because the UI is nice, you use it to talk to your friends and share photos. I actually don't use Google Maps -- because it's a crazy mess of buttons and menus that get in my way of trying to navigate. I actually don't use Facebook -- because it's a horrible dog's breakfast of inscr…

> I actually don't use Google Maps -- because it's a crazy mess of buttons and menus that get in my way of trying to navigate.

I've found the actual map part of Google Maps to be the best designed online map. Compared to Bing or Mapquest, I find it much easier to get a sense of an area using Google Maps.

Re: UI redesigns are mostly a waste of time

#155

Post by hopler »

blunte wrote: post #84
calinet6 wrote: post #13

> 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…

As a user, 9/10 if I notice the UI has changed, it's because I'm unhappy and feeling encumbered or lost. It's very rare that a redesign had me saying, "Oh wow, that's so much better!" So many UI fads have set usability back but get repeated with most redesigns... hamburger menus, login forms that hide password fields until you've entered the username, ultra minimal forms that leave the user guessing what is interacti…

Explain why the hamburger menu is bad but the floppy disk icon is good.

Re: UI redesigns are mostly a waste of time

#156

Post by hopler »

TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #70
wvenable wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's the difference between a re-design and constant refinement of a design? I believe in making products aesthetically pleasing. I spend a lot of time ensuring my products look good because I know that this is the first impression of any product. I'm constantly improving the design of my products in subtle (and sometimes not subtle) ways. Full redesigns are the design equivalent of full software rewrites . They su…

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…

Ribbon may have been a bad idea, but MS claimed they did a bunch of UX research around it. Why is the standard menu metaphor better? Hunting through a hundred menu items whose names I don't need is a pain, especially if I don't have years of experience learning the options.

Re: UI redesigns are mostly a waste of time

#157

Post by Waterluvian »

calinet6 wrote: post #13

> 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…

The fundamental challenge I have with UX and UX people is that there's clearly a lot of really important, useful stuff in the discipline, mixed with a lot of nonsense. And I've been burned a few times by those who tell a good story to susceptible executives and utterly waste time and resources to justify their own existence.

I wish there were better resources for non UX people like me to learn how to tell the difference.

Re: UI redesigns are mostly a waste of time

#158

Post by ojr »

I don't think Instagram, one of the most used software user interfaces think redesigns are a waste of time, they redesigned to be similar to Snapchat and was able to create a new user experience that engaged users and was able to be monetized efficiently through advertisements

Re: UI redesigns are mostly a waste of time

#159

Post by werber »

Waterluvian wrote: post #157
calinet6 wrote: post #13

> 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…

The fundamental challenge I have with UX and UX people is that there's clearly a lot of really important, useful stuff in the discipline, mixed with a lot of nonsense. And I've been burned a few times by those who tell a good story to susceptible executives and utterly waste time and resources to justify their own existence. I wish there were better resources for non UX people like me to learn how to tell the differe…

When UX veers away from research and data it gets nasty. I think the situation you're describing is something that happens when their isn't full buy in from the stake holders on the value of that research

Re: UI redesigns are mostly a waste of time

#160

Post by azhenley »

Waterluvian wrote: post #157
calinet6 wrote: post #13

> 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…

The fundamental challenge I have with UX and UX people is that there's clearly a lot of really important, useful stuff in the discipline, mixed with a lot of nonsense. And I've been burned a few times by those who tell a good story to susceptible executives and utterly waste time and resources to justify their own existence. I wish there were better resources for non UX people like me to learn how to tell the differe…

What you describe is true in any area, including software developers.

You could just start learning about UX. It’ll make you a better engineer!

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