Users hate change • Hacker News Board

Re: Users hate change

#271

Post by hinkley » Sat, Jul 27, 2019, 1:26 AM UTC

torstenvl wrote: post #223

mgbmtl wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Old version support has a cost for the company supporting it. I guess it shows to the maturity of the company when they do. It's not easy to pull off. As a dev on a mid-size project, I'd say that those UI changes often have two sides, with people who will also complain "why can't you just fix/change X, it's such a small change, but so annoying". Everyone wants their issue fixed, but not the issues of others. Our proj…

> Old version support has a cost for the company supporting it. Old UI support has zero cost to it. Arbitrary new UIs have significant cost to them.

UI is surface area. Having 2 UIs vastly increases the surface area of the application, which means tons of testing. It also means all of your developers have to dedicate resources to remembering 2 or 3 versions of the UI, and to an extent the history of those changes.

There are also degrees to which it's more difficult to memorize two loosely related things than it is to memorize two completely separate ones, because your brain keeps trying to treat them as similar even when they are not.

Re: Users hate change

#272

Post by jv22222 » Sat, Jul 27, 2019, 1:33 AM UTC

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…

One might argue that some SaaS product teams hold back adding new features almost to a fault. Basecamp and Sifter come to mind.

Edit: I know more about Sifter than Basecamp. I login to Basecamp every few years and it seems like not too much has changed to my untrained eye, but maybe they did stuff under the hood. For sure I know that Sifter got to what they considered peak features and stopped.

Re: Users hate change

#273

Post by tjalfi » Sat, Jul 27, 2019, 1:44 AM UTC

fredsanford wrote: post #214

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…

I bought Office 2007 around the time of its release because a client didn't like whatever word processor I was using. I've used Office 2007 ever since and absolutely have no need for any feature additions. And there were no bugs that affected my use. Why would I subscribe to the current overly bloated Office? Why should I?

Office 2007 went end of support in October 2017[0].

Office 365 is a support nightmare but it does have security patches.

[0] https://products.office.com/en-us/office-2007-end-of-support

Re: Users hate change

#274

Post by duxup » Sat, Jul 27, 2019, 2:05 AM UTC

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…

I fear that peak often comes before many companies are profitable.

Re: Users hate change

#275

Post by hn_throwaway_99 » Sat, Jul 27, 2019, 2:32 AM UTC

johnday wrote: post #100

TeMPOraL wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Facebook's UI has changed significantly over the last 15 or so years. Features have appeared and disappeared, boxes have been arranged and rearranged. But there's rarely a big fuss beyond it getting a little slower each time (roughly commensurate with consumer hardware speedup, in fact). People don't really notice and they don't really care. Are you using the same Facebook as I do? Every time they rearranged more t…

I guess that's a side effect of the siloing that goes on on Facebook. I certainly heard nothing major about it, and orders of magnitude less than the same/similar people about the Twitter redesigns.

In the earlier days of Facebook, say until 2012 or so, there were definitely huge uproars when there were major changes. I think that after a while people just had basic "learned helplessness" symptoms - there weren't really any possible alternatives to FB due to network effects, so they just got used to it.

Re: Users hate change

#276

Post by Falkon1313 » Sat, Jul 27, 2019, 2:35 AM UTC

lars_francke wrote: post #174

nofunsir wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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…

I agree with your examples but I think a piece of software is different because users expect it to change over time. New Mac OS version? Users want to support it. Found a bug in a library uses? Users expect to get a fixed version etc. And while as a software user/buyer myself I like the idea of paying once and be done with it I kinda understand why people need recurring income if they keep on working on a piece of so…

>users expect it to change over time

No, they expect to have the opportunity to upgrade to newer versions which may be different if they want those differences. They don't expect the one they bought, learned to use, and have grown proficient with to suddenly be completely different one day for no good reason.

Consider buying a truck because you haul stuff around a lot. You don't expect to just come out to your driveway one morning and find a fuel-efficient minicar there instead because someone at the car company decided that people like fuel-efficient vehicles, so they would steal back all the trucks they made and replace them. However, maybe you used to haul a lot of cargo but you don't anymore so you've been thinking of replacing the truck and a fuel-efficient car would interest you, but you want that to be your choice.

Re: Users hate change

#277

Post by notSupplied » Sat, Jul 27, 2019, 2:43 AM UTC

"We know what's best for the user" is assuming you are even designing for the user in the first place.

The user is often not the customer, and design changes are ultimately here to serve the company, not the user:

- How can we increase number of ads users will tolerate? - How do we increase the amount of content users share? - How do we increase the number of likes/hearts they send?

I wouldn't be surprised if the lionshare of user backlash comes from decisions that weren't meant to serve the user in the first place.

Re: Users hate change

#278

Post by Falkon1313 » Sat, Jul 27, 2019, 2:48 AM UTC

Largah wrote: post #173

nofunsir wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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…

the difference being that if your shovel breaks or is redesigned, you have to buy a new one. with software, updates and new features are expected to be free to a certain extent, so other means of monetization are necessary.

Generally no. Fixes (bugfixes and security fixes) yes, changes (and removed features) no.

Re: Users hate change

#279

Post by Falkon1313 » Sat, Jul 27, 2019, 3:02 AM UTC

robocat wrote: post #215

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.

SaaS means all customers get our new features and on our schedule, not theirs (note: we sell a SaaS). We would never freeze an old "version" because that would cost us too much to maintain (edit: we do freeze in short term, we don't in long term). We still add "bloat" features because we are trying to sell to new customers. On the flip side, customers do get new features that are useful to them without the price of t…

>If we froze features, and only fixed bugs (and browser compatibility), customers would eventually drift away over the long term because they do need some new features.

Why not sell it as an upgrade/add-on/DLC then? More money for you and less hassle and bugs for the customer to deal with.

Re: Users hate change

#280

Post by robocat » Sat, Jul 27, 2019, 3:29 AM UTC

Falkon1313 wrote: post #279

robocat wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

SaaS means all customers get our new features and on our schedule, not theirs (note: we sell a SaaS). We would never freeze an old "version" because that would cost us too much to maintain (edit: we do freeze in short term, we don't in long term). We still add "bloat" features because we are trying to sell to new customers. On the flip side, customers do get new features that are useful to them without the price of t…

>If we froze features, and only fixed bugs (and browser compatibility), customers would eventually drift away over the long term because they do need some new features. Why not sell it as an upgrade/add-on/DLC then? More money for you and less hassle and bugs for the customer to deal with.

Might be financially a good idea - perhaps we are just lazy and leaving money on table? Hard to say.

But it is such a pain keeping track of who's got what features enabled, what the pricing structure is, more complex invoicing, customers are paying already etc.

We would for a new major "product" but we do not for smaller features.