Redesigning

[OC2PS]

Some thoughts on redesigning

 

http://www.useit.com/alertbox/familiar-design.html

 

 

Why Insiders Want Fresh Design

 

You stare at the thing all day, years on end. Of course you think the UI looks tired. Count the number of "exposure hours" you've had to your own design. If you've worked on the same design team for a few years, those hours likely reach into the thousands.

 

In contrast, your typical user has probably spent only a few hours looking at your design over the last few years.

 

 

 

Why Users Want Familiar Design

 

The most important reason? Users don't care about design for its own sake; they just want to get things done and get out.

 

Thus, people love a design when they know the features and can immediately locate the ones they need. That is, they love a familiar design. In fact, anytime you release a redesign, prepare for a flood of angry email from customers.

 

People who regularly use a UI become experienced users and their user experience is dominated by skilled performance. ...The more that people rely on skilled performance, the more they depend on having routine behaviors automated. Thus, high-frequency users also prefer a familiar design.

 

 

 

When To Refresh Designs Anyway

 

Generally, it's best to evolve a UI with gentle changes rather than offer a totally fresh design. I thus strongly recommend getting the basic design right in the first place, before you launch, so that it can live for several years with minor updates.

 

Still, there are two cases in which a more radical approach is appropriate:

• If you have almost no current users and expect a major design improvement to dramatically expand the user base. In this case, the business loss from punishing your current customers is small enough to be worth taking. Of course, it's still a gamble that you'll actually be able to attract a vastly bigger audience. Remember the old adage: a bird in the hand is better than two in the bush. Unless you're sure that there are millions of users in that bush, you might not want to go there.
  
• If your old design has incrementally evolved for so many years that the overall user experience has become overly convoluted and lost any sense of a unified conceptual structure.
  

[OC2PS]

Jared "Mr. $300M button" Spool makes the same point:

http://www.slideshar...from-the-amazon

Jump to 38mts 35secs

Slide 64

[Guest]

Microsoft has one of, if not the largest, user base in the world. Yet they have been radically changing the UI for its products over the last few years. The Office Ribbon. IE9, and with the up coming Windows 8, Microsoft is making a complete UI change.

[OC2PS]

I rest my case

[OC2PS]

Microsoft bashing aside, in all seriousness, just because a large company does it doesn't make it right.

 

Sometimes companies with huge user bases, and virtual monopolies can afford to piss users off a bit - most major redesigns of Facebook have angered legions of users, but due to the lack of a viable alternative and due to the lock-in caused by network effects, there's not a huge loss in usage for Facebook.

 

Same goes to a large extent for Microsoft. Because of networks effects, Windows has a virtual monopoly on Desktop OSs. Even so, 6 years after the launch of Windows Vista, and 3 years after the launch of Windows 7, the market share of Windows 7 lags behind that of the 11yr old Windows XP. Users just didn't enthusiastically embrace Vista/7. Compare this to the launch of Windows XP when 70% of the user base enthusiastically hopped over within 3 years.

 

IE9 has accelerated the fall of IE's share of browser market instead of stemming it.

 

 

We'll see how things go with Windows 8

 

This is not to say that you must never ever redesign. Instead, the point is that in 99% of the cases (meant as vast majority, not actual number), a redesign is not a good idea, and that, therefore there must be a great deal of thought and analysis that should go into the decision to redesign...

 

Peace out

[strapper]

impressive

[Guest]

I’m not really disagreeing with your point. But when someone points to data as if it is true, and I point to data that may also be true. Then perhaps our own opinion should be what is important, rather than the sum of our citation.

 

 

"IE has reclaimed nearly two percentage points over the past three months--jumping almost a full percentage point just this month. What’s more interesting, is that Microsoft’s browser took a little share from every other browser out there to make up that percentage point gain."

 

http://www.pcworld.com/article/252998/internet_explorer_is_up_every_other_browser_is_down.html

 

Windows 7 vs. XP?

 

"Selling faster than any other version of Windows -- or any other operating system in the history of the world, for that matter -- Windows 7 soared to a 40.21 percent (appr.) installation rate in under 2 years, bumping the much beloved Windows XP to second place (38.64 percent)."

 

http://www.dailytech.com/Windows+7+Passes+Windows+XP+in+Just+Two+Years+to+Become+Top+OS/article23016.htm

[OC2PS]

Gaining 2 percent point over 3 months after a year of decline after launch doesn't sound like a reversal...it sounds like a blip...even if it is a reversal, it is undisputed that upon launch of IE9 accelerated the fall of IE market share...supporting the point about new design alienating users.

 

Regarding Windows 7, sure installation rate has gone up...why wouldn't it? But it still needs to catch up with XP in installed base.

 

Eitherway, you missed the point which was:

...just because a large company does it doesn't make it right.

 

Sometimes companies with huge user bases, and virtual monopolies can afford to piss users off a bit...

[Bill Dalton]

"the Innovator’s Dilemma (or, why you hate Windows 8)"

http://www.itwriting.com/blog/5875-microsoft-windows-8-and-the-innovators-dilemma-or-why-you-hate-windows-8.html

 

Or in other words ... why create a new edition which its customers do not want?