99% of the time, yes, except when no. http://tonsky.me/blog/github-redesign/
UI redesigns are mostly a waste of time
271–280 of 290 posts
Re: UI redesigns are mostly a waste of time
#272Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why is it better? What is the reason it's preferred?
It’s less visually jarring and doesn’t feel malleable. Find another human interface that consists of sharp edged shapes. That design aesthetic is like brutalist UI. Pretty for the architect, but few others are moved.
It's not at all obvious that rounded rectangles are superior to sharp edges.
Sharp edges convey precision, rounded edges convey approximation. Many mechanical knobs and buttons have clear notches and clicks to make clear to the user they are in control of the machine.
Re: UI redesigns are mostly a waste of time
#273Earlier quoted context omitted.
Job security, designers can only design, so that's what they do. And if there is nothing new to design, they will keep redesigning. Gotta keep up with the trends.
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's the beauty of free Open Source projects. Code is written when it's required. When the project does it's job, coders move on to other useful projects.
Re: UI redesigns are mostly a waste of time
#274> 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).
When designers try to justify themselves, they commit many sins, but performance problems are usually due to programmers trying to justify themselves.
Re: UI redesigns are mostly a waste of time
#275Completely disagree with the OP. I have enough scar tissue to believe bad UI or even the one that's not pleasing or inspiring receives lot lower engagement from users than having a clean, snappy and beautiful UI. The OP's claims can be easily disproved by contradiction. If UI improvements didn't make a difference, A/B testing on designs wouldn't have resulted in massive improvements. Making design more accessible, an…
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Re: UI redesigns are mostly a waste of time
#276Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yep. I can't say I've worked on data at that scale, but the 'every commit is a time bomb' - had that feeling on things. What has bugged me in the past (and why I don't like being just a 'coder') is that... hey - people in my position have a perspective few others have. Sometimes we can see things that others can't, and generally we're smart enough to understand the business impact. If you're being asked to implement…
>you can see how a business is being impacted by things that you can see Strongly agree. The biggest barrier between devs and refactors with zero interface impact is AGILE mentality of always aiming to deliver value to the end user with every deploy. Business people just don't understand how much of an impact crappy implementations and error handling does have on the end user. We see 5~6% error rate, which represents…
> We see 5~6% error rate, which represents hundreds of thousand of people daily, but shipping a new "feature" (that within months will be used by a few hundred people with a very high bounce rate) is always the top priority.
seems to get back to "what gets measured" mantra. And, reminds me cell phone company churn. There's loads of things that could be done to improve service for existing customers, but companies spend budget chasing 'new' customers to 'switch' with low rates for X months, then jack up the price. "Loyal" customers get ignored.
Re: UI redesigns are mostly a waste of time
#277Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'd like to point out that the search and how the results are displayed are part of the design - and can be the major bit . UI design isn't only, often not even primarily, about aesthetics.
Bad UI design might cripple a good search capability, but UI design cannot fix a weak one.
True. But you might as well say the same about an umbrella not keeping mosquitoes away.
UI design doesn't involve BE design in any way. So?
Re: UI redesigns are mostly a waste of time
#278Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'd like to point out that the search and how the results are displayed are part of the design - and can be the major bit . UI design isn't only, often not even primarily, about aesthetics.
UI redesigns frequently are primarily about aesthetics. You don't have to completely redesign your site to redesign your search.
Sometimes, sure. And sometimes aesthetics are vital. That doesn't say anything about UI design in general though, only a subset of cases.
It's possible you may need to redo UI for new search. If I add faceted search or geo search, for example in my search update, I may well need to redo the UI in a way much more fundamental than aesthetics.
Re: UI redesigns are mostly a waste of time
#279Earlier quoted context omitted.
Do you think they prioritized the newest users/prospects versus power users?
I don't imagine excuses for bad business decisions--There's really no point to adding a layer of rationality on top of an all too common failure. This isn't a "game". I don't believe there are different levels of 'user'. This platform brings together your real-time geo-position, published maps, published transit schedules, multiple transit systems, and real-time system updates together. It's all there and all useful…
I wasn't trying to excuse their choices, but learn a bit about this case.
> If there's a difference among users, it's found when you live in a transit-rich community, like I do in NYC Metro
Thanks, this is the context I was interested in.
Re: UI redesigns are mostly a waste of time
#280Couldn't agree more. Jira, bitbucket, outlook, gmail and the list goes on and on. The really jarring redesigns are literally maddening and make me angry. They are so shitty. The other designs are basically the same design with more whitespace. Either way, the app doesn't benefit and at best, you're angering users. If I could stop using jira or Bitbucket, I would just for their shitty UIs. Things that used to be one c…
All the ones you named are websites, and user stylesheets are a thing, so if you're sufficiently incensed by a site you're forced to use, you can apply your own CSS to fix what can be fixed relatively easily; increasing contrast, changing colours, and adding borders/delimiting lines is what I most often use it for. Chances are you're not the only one hating the changes, so sharing your CSS with coworkers (or even the…
CSS will bring back the missing buttons? It'll magically show the information that was there before? What is this CSS you speak of? The user experience can't be fixed by CSS. Maybe I can hide that annoying menu, true. Then I can't do any of the common activities within it. I'm not sure you understand what user experience is or the limitations of CSS.