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Users hate change

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Re: Users hate change

#191

Post by saltminer »

bitwize wrote: post #77
nemacol wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The real kick in the beans from MS is the new UI lacks anything beyond basic functionality in the new UI. For example, Win10 (1803) Mouse settings you can modify: Left/Right handed, Scroll Wheel lines, Scroll inactive windows when you hover. For every other change you have to click "Additional mouse options" and are taken to the old UI. MS Win10, and to a lesser extent Server 2016-19 has increased the number of click…

Use the cortana bar to search for control panel settings in Windows 10. The UX for system settings is still like barf, arbitrarily choosing between two UIs depending on the setting is some shit that wouldn't even fly in desktop Linux in 2019, and was an artifact of the Win8pocalypse which Microsoft later walked back. But searching for settings is still possible.

I think that the settings search has gotten worse in 10. "Disk management" no longer returns the relevant MMC, for example, I have to search "disk partitions". Last night, "add or remove" defaulted to a web search, so I searched "programs" and "Add or Remove Programs" was the first result...I still can't figure out that one.

Re: Users hate change

#192

Post by jedberg »

Two related stories. At one point way back in the day, eBay wanted to change the background color of the main page from yellow to white. They didn't just make the change one day, instead they slowly changed the hex code every couple of days so the change was gradual. When it was complete, some people would say stuff like, "Hey, didn't the background used to be yellow, when did that change?".

When I worked at reddit I told this story, and we ended up using the same technique to move from a two line display to a three line display. Each day we slight changed the spacing to make it larger, until we had enough room for the three lines, and then we switched to three lines. Some people even responded to people's complaints by saying, "but it doesn't take up any more space than the old two line display!". Of course this was reddit, and at the time the code was totally open source, so someone found the daily checkins to change the spacing and outed us, forcing us to put the "compress the link display" checkbox into the preferences, which is still there to this day.

Re: Users hate change

#193

Post by ken »

nofunsir wrote: post #168
yoz-y wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Subscription model is actually way better if you don't want to end up with feature bloat. Because you actually get money from users even if you only ever fix bugs and improve performance. If you freeze your features you will soon arrive at a point where everybody who wanted your software bought it and then the revenue stops.

"everybody who wanted your software bought it and then the revenue stops." That's... how it should work. You don't get to hook into their wallets for time and all eternity. everybody who wanted your bought it and then the revenue stops. everybody who wanted your bought it and then the revenue stops. everybody who wanted your bought it and then the revenue stops. ... and then you go do something else! That is the prec…

Except that revenue stream ends before the "fix bugs and improve performance" step. People buy based on screenshots/demos/trials/reviews, and those don't expose the deep bugs you run into 3 months later when doing real work.

Shovels break, light bulbs burn out. Then you go buy another one, and there's a good chance it's better than the earlier one. The manufacturer keeps working to improve the quality, and people keep paying them for this. "Buy a software license once for all time" is not analogous to this.

Re: Users hate change

#194

Post by sah2ed »

Doctor_Fegg wrote: post #159
vbezhenar wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's because the world decided to adopt software as a service model, where your device is just a thin client and real work is happening on a server. And that model is incompatible with letting customers to run old versions.

That’s not at all true of the Adobe stuff. The real work in Photoshop or Illustrator still happens on the Mac.

But it is only a matter of time. Once webassembly achieves near feature parity with the native versions, you bet Adobe will switch users to the webassembly version.

From Adobe's perspective, it offers a lot of benefits:

- they don't have maintain build farms or pay a CDN to host GBs of binaries of native installers (for different OSes);

- users will always be on the latest (read: most secure) version since there is nothing to install or nag the user to check for updates/apply security patches;

- browser-dependence implies near-persistent Internet access, making license management/enforcement a whole lot easier;

- they can upsell you on cloud storage so that all your assets are available from any web browser.

Re: Users hate change

#195

Post by rightbyte »

yxhuvud wrote: post #127
mikro2nd wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

The same issue exist in the Facebook feed, by the way. I really wonder why they won't allow people to be able to set it permanently.

Because they want to control what people see in their feeds to prolong eyeball seconds, which you get by hiding what you find interesting in piles of poo.

Re: Users hate change

#196

Post by ken »

dataflow wrote: post #137
holy_city wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly? Because no software is free from bugs and there will always be a need for support. The difference between single sale and subscription can be life or death for a company, its products, and its support. But if you don't feel that a subscription to a service adds value, please don't buy it and voice your concern to the developers. Especially if they're a small shop. That said, subscriptions can be canceled. F…

> The difference between single sale and subscription can be life or death for a company, its products, and its support. Oh come on. Companies have been in business selling stuff for the longest time. It wasn't exactly wrecking capitalism before subscriptions became the normality in the last decade.

It's been wrecking software companies for decades. Name one consumer software company from the 1980's that still exists, besides Microsoft. In software, monopolies, consolidation, and integration are the name of the game.

In contrast, I can easily name dozens of companies in other fields that have been around for 50 years or more, including some small ones that have stayed small yet successful.

Re: Users hate change

#197

Post by mynameishere »

jedberg wrote: post #192

Two related stories. At one point way back in the day, eBay wanted to change the background color of the main page from yellow to white. They didn't just make the change one day, instead they slowly changed the hex code every couple of days so the change was gradual. When it was complete, some people would say stuff like, "Hey, didn't the background used to be yellow, when did that change?". When I worked at reddit I…

compress the link display

To save people from checking, this seems to turn off the preview images and the link scores. Not sure what 2- vs 3-line is referring to.

Re: Users hate change

#198

Post by eeeeeeeeeeeee »

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…

That definitely happens, but I think a lot of the blunders are due to good intentions with poor execution or not enough thought into the need and demand.

Things like adding features to solve a problem, when those problems only affect a small percentage of users, is something I see a lot. Especially in the beginning of a product when you’re not 100% sure what you’re making or who you’re making it for and you want to appease all of your customers so you don’t lose them.

Or the feature added is too complex to be useful for a user without training / tutorials, of which few users will undertake that time investment.

I have yet to be on a team where features were not trying to directly address a customer issue / complaint, but maybe I’ve been lucky.

Re: Users hate change

#200

Post by jedberg »

mynameishere wrote: post #197
jedberg wrote: post #192

Two related stories. At one point way back in the day, eBay wanted to change the background color of the main page from yellow to white. They didn't just make the change one day, instead they slowly changed the hex code every couple of days so the change was gradual. When it was complete, some people would say stuff like, "Hey, didn't the background used to be yellow, when did that change?". When I worked at reddit I…

compress the link display To save people from checking, this seems to turn off the preview images and the link scores. Not sure what 2- vs 3-line is referring to.

If you go to old.reddit.com, each link takes three lines (the title, the metadata, and the buttons). If you check that box, it goes back to the old two line display (the title, and then metadata and buttons on one line).
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