23 ms·

Me and a lot of smart developers before me have learned on our skins that you should never make a rewrite. I think web design has the same problems as web deve

Me and a lot of smart developers before me have learned on our skins that you should never make a rewrite. I think web design has the same problems as web development in regards to rewrite but the design community has yet to internalize that you should never remake something from scratch. That's not to say that you should keep an old design forever - instead make changes incrementally and gradually. Putting 12 designers to work for a year with zero feedback and trying not to hurt whatever magic made reddit popular in the first place is bound to be a disastrous affair.

ryanmerket 9y ago
They couldn’t keep the old codebase. It was plagued with tech debt and was hindering their progress in releasing even the most basic of new features.
- slig 9y ago
  I wonder which new features a site that is basically pictures/videos with threaded comments needs, since it already does that.
bballer 9y ago
I think this is absolutely true for user to user social interaction websites, less true for B2B applications. In the last 2 years at my company we took an old early 2000s looking application that our customers used and completely redesigned it plus brought in a lot of new functionality. To the point where at the core they are still getting some of the same job done but with such a different experience drawing 1:1 lines between the functionality is blurred. This whole new experience has been absolutely fantastic, our customers rave about it and our revenue has grown around 250%. Not to say this is always the case but when something is dated and not providing the experience it can/should be, sometimes a rewrite can be a huge win. But like you said, it still can't be done in a bubble and it can't be driven by a vision of a designer but ultimately the experience your customers seek.

23 ms·

Me and a lot of smart developers before me have learned on our skins that you should never make a rewrite. I think web design has the same problems as web deve

by Illniyar 9y ago

ryanmerket 9y ago
They couldn’t keep the old codebase. It was plagued with tech debt and was hindering their progress in releasing even the most basic of new features.
- slig 9y ago
  I wonder which new features a site that is basically pictures/videos with threaded comments needs, since it already does that.
bballer 9y ago
I think this is absolutely true for user to user social interaction websites, less true for B2B applications. In the last 2 years at my company we took an old early 2000s looking application that our customers used and completely redesigned it plus brought in a lot of new functionality. To the point where at the core they are still getting some of the same job done but with such a different experience drawing 1:1 lines between the functionality is blurred. This whole new experience has been absolutely fantastic, our customers rave about it and our revenue has grown around 250%. Not to say this is always the case but when something is dated and not providing the experience it can/should be, sometimes a rewrite can be a huge win. But like you said, it still can't be done in a bubble and it can't be driven by a vision of a designer but ultimately the experience your customers seek.