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Whatever goes up, that’s what we do

dcurt.is

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Re: Whatever goes up, that’s what we do

#161

Post by mehwoot »

wisty wrote: post #156
ignostic wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've actually faced a similar situation, and let me tell you it was hard . Companies like Yahoo exist to make money - or, at least, they must continue to make money in order to continue existing. Like Dustin said, > "This is truly a nightmare scenario for any CEO: do you take the risk and proceed with the better user experience/product at the expense of short term numbers–with no promise that the better design will a…

> Companies like Yahoo exist to make money - or, at least, they must continue to make money in order to continue existing. Hows that working for Yahoo now? Actually, that's kind of disingenuous. Google optimises for less clicks per user, because Google is a site for people who want to get stuff done. Yahoo and Facebook are time-wasters. And unlike Yahoo, I can't see it ever transitioning to anything other than a time…

Hows that working for Yahoo now?

Pretty well, considering they are still around more than a decade after they stopped being "cool". They're not trendy in tech circles, they are just a business that makes money.

Yahoo and Facebook are time-wasters... Time-wasters are basically unprofitable

Yeah, unprofitable to the tune of $600 million a year. That's Yahoo's net profit last year.

I swear to god, the blindness of people to anything that's not hip right now is amazing. People assume because they personally stopped caring about something that it must have failed.

Re: Whatever goes up, that’s what we do

#162

Post by cfontes »

ignostic wrote: post #121
steven2012 wrote: post #79

This is essentially what happened in my group when I was at Yahoo. Our group spent several months on a redesign that made it significantly more modern and easier to use. After it went live, though, this decreased the number of ad clicks by a significant number, and the people in charge hurriedly reverted all the changes back, since they needed to make their revenue numbers in order to make their bonus. When you are s…

I've actually faced a similar situation, and let me tell you it was hard . Companies like Yahoo exist to make money - or, at least, they must continue to make money in order to continue existing. Like Dustin said, > "This is truly a nightmare scenario for any CEO: do you take the risk and proceed with the better user experience/product at the expense of short term numbers–with no promise that the better design will a…

It happened www.lifehacker.com a few years ago.

But I think they really made it worst after the updated UI, I never got back there.

Re: Whatever goes up, that’s what we do

#163

Post by baddox »

steven2012 wrote: post #79

This is essentially what happened in my group when I was at Yahoo. Our group spent several months on a redesign that made it significantly more modern and easier to use. After it went live, though, this decreased the number of ad clicks by a significant number, and the people in charge hurriedly reverted all the changes back, since they needed to make their revenue numbers in order to make their bonus. When you are s…

I think I can see both sides. If all meaningful stats you are collecting are going down, I think something is definitely wrong. There are basically three options:

1. Fix/revert the update so that those stats increase again. This is probably the easiest/quickest option, especially the revert, but it obviously sucks to have "wasted" time on the updates.

2. Collect new/more stats that you deem meaningful and see if those have increased. This is the one that I like best from the perspective of a lowly programmer who worked hard on the updates, because it provides the possibility that even though existing stats have worsened, the updates are still empirically better. Of course, it's hard to figure out what new stats to look for, and whether or not to deem them truly meaningful. An oversimplified example would be if all you're looking at is ad conversions, maybe you should start looking at user retention as well, because even if ad conversions decrease, a large increase in retention can in the long (or even short) run lead to more revenue.

3. Ignore the numbers on the prediction that the numbers will increase over time. This one is also appealing, but will and probably should be rejected by management.

Something that also needs to be recognized is that "significantly more modern and easier to use" is a subjective claim, and is not necessarily "better" for whatever definition of "better" the company is using.

Re: Whatever goes up, that’s what we do

#164

Post by baddox »

kenko wrote: post #135
ignostic wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've actually faced a similar situation, and let me tell you it was hard . Companies like Yahoo exist to make money - or, at least, they must continue to make money in order to continue existing. Like Dustin said, > "This is truly a nightmare scenario for any CEO: do you take the risk and proceed with the better user experience/product at the expense of short term numbers–with no promise that the better design will a…

There's a lot of room between "exist to make money" and "must make money in order to exist". Like, a staggering amount of room.

I don't really see much of a difference. If a company must make money to continue to exist, then I think it's reasonable to say that company "exists to make money." Of course, that doesn't mean is exists only to make money.

Re: Whatever goes up, that’s what we do

#165

Post by alexdowad »

wisty wrote: post #156
ignostic wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've actually faced a similar situation, and let me tell you it was hard . Companies like Yahoo exist to make money - or, at least, they must continue to make money in order to continue existing. Like Dustin said, > "This is truly a nightmare scenario for any CEO: do you take the risk and proceed with the better user experience/product at the expense of short term numbers–with no promise that the better design will a…

> Companies like Yahoo exist to make money - or, at least, they must continue to make money in order to continue existing. Hows that working for Yahoo now? Actually, that's kind of disingenuous. Google optimises for less clicks per user, because Google is a site for people who want to get stuff done. Yahoo and Facebook are time-wasters. And unlike Yahoo, I can't see it ever transitioning to anything other than a time…

I also have no interest in using Yahoo, but my (Japanese) wife loves using the Japanese-language version to browse news, etc. I wonder if they are making most of their money in Japan.

Re: Whatever goes up, that’s what we do

#166

Post by hrjet »

mehwoot wrote: post #161
wisty wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Companies like Yahoo exist to make money - or, at least, they must continue to make money in order to continue existing. Hows that working for Yahoo now? Actually, that's kind of disingenuous. Google optimises for less clicks per user, because Google is a site for people who want to get stuff done. Yahoo and Facebook are time-wasters. And unlike Yahoo, I can't see it ever transitioning to anything other than a time…

Hows that working for Yahoo now? Pretty well, considering they are still around more than a decade after they stopped being "cool". They're not trendy in tech circles, they are just a business that makes money. Yahoo and Facebook are time-wasters... Time-wasters are basically unprofitable Yeah, unprofitable to the tune of $600 million a year. That's Yahoo's net profit last year. I swear to god, the blindness of peopl…

IIRC, they were the top destination 15 years back. They were the default homepage in most browsers. From that spot to "just a business that makes money" is perhaps not the best thing to happen to them.

At the same time, I don't think Yahoo is purely money-minded. From what I read, they were the only company which challenged the FISA orders last year (even before the Snowden leaks).

Re: Whatever goes up, that’s what we do

#167

Post by teacup50 »

mehwoot wrote: post #161
wisty wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Companies like Yahoo exist to make money - or, at least, they must continue to make money in order to continue existing. Hows that working for Yahoo now? Actually, that's kind of disingenuous. Google optimises for less clicks per user, because Google is a site for people who want to get stuff done. Yahoo and Facebook are time-wasters. And unlike Yahoo, I can't see it ever transitioning to anything other than a time…

Hows that working for Yahoo now? Pretty well, considering they are still around more than a decade after they stopped being "cool". They're not trendy in tech circles, they are just a business that makes money. Yahoo and Facebook are time-wasters... Time-wasters are basically unprofitable Yeah, unprofitable to the tune of $600 million a year. That's Yahoo's net profit last year. I swear to god, the blindness of peopl…

$600 million? So they're doing a bit better than AOL, then.

Re: Whatever goes up, that’s what we do

#168

Post by exodust »

ignostic wrote: post #119
exodust wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point is about design being held back or distorted by numbers - which are often a false prophesy when it comes to UX improvements. Nobody is suggesting that numbers don't matter, but if you can't decide on a border thickness of 1 or 2 pixels without numbers to tell you which to go with, you've lost your mojo. And that matters in the long term. When the aim is to increase length of time on the site or in the app,…

> "design being held back or distorted by numbers - which are often a false prophesy when it comes to UX improvements." > "the numbers will "tell you" to make the interface more complicated, to hide the sign-out button" Oh yes, I definitely understand that we misinterpret what the numbers mean. My point is that this isn't the numbers' fault - it's our fault for not understanding what we're measuring and what the numb…

Fair enough. I agree the interpretation of the data we collect leaves a lot to be desired.

Where I work, I've seen good products killed off because of low traffic, but the low traffic was due to people not finding the product due to poor navigation - which in turn was made poor because of marketing requirements to "drive traffic" to their latest short term gimmick. It's a complex web.

Re: Whatever goes up, that’s what we do

#169

Post by mkbrody »

mikeg8 wrote: post #33
mkbrody wrote: post #12

Culture is internal marketing. The numbers are what really matters.

> The numbers are what really matters. To survive, yes. To make the the deepest impact, no.

Amazon's UI will never be considered beautiful, but it's core strategy of focusing on the numbers has allowed it to accomplish more than 99.9% of companies ever formed.

I'm sure they've sacrificed many redesigns in the name of numbers to get to where they are.

FB could implement a redesign, look cool for another 15 minutes, and then have ad revenue dry up, less money for R&D and acquisitions, look bad in the press & on Wall Street, and then blip out after another "cool" redesign.

To also back up my point, if Zuckerberg and the upper echelon of Facebook think this way, they're probably right, considering they have a proven track record of making good decisions and more insider knowledge than anyone else on the subject.

Re: Whatever goes up, that’s what we do

#170

Post by jey »

redorb wrote: post #109
epistasis wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>text links replaced by only graphical icons This is a terribly pernicious trend in all sorts of software, not just GMail. I really hope that the fad dies out soon, because it's preventing me form effectively using software that otherwise may have been great.

Vincent Flanders called this mystery meat navigation [1] and has a whole site about webpages that suck.. (a bit dated) [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mystery_meat_navigation http://www.webpagesthatsuck.com/mysterymeatnavigation.html

    Some people have asked, "Where are the sites?" Well, the 
    menu above should aim you in the right direction.
Too bad that Web Pages That Suck sucks.
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