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UI redesigns are mostly a waste of time

• preommr 8y ago
  What some people will think: "Improving your UI is a waste of time" "UI is pointless" What the author is actually saying (imo): "UI redesigns create costs that should warrant them. There are a lot of times when a website makes radical redesigns for comparatively marginal improvements. These improvements are not always worth it for reasons like existing userbase having to relearn the new ui." This is a fair point and I think a lot of times places rebrand because they want to look like they're doing something even if it comes at the cost of overall usability.
  • sexy_seedbox 8y ago
    This is how I felt when Meetup.com completely redesigned their site and logo.
  • noodle 8y ago
    Its a fair point because its a generic point. Changing something that already works well enough introduces risk. You might make some things better, you might make some things worse. If things are already pretty good, making changes might result in making more things worse than better. True with most things. UI/UX, art, software, architecture, writing, etc etc
  • hbosch 8y ago
    Yes there is an echo chamber of design, that leads to a lot of "FOMO" and "Keeping up with the Joneses". Of course you can have a perfectly functional social network, for instance, running on vanilla Bootstrap. Nothing wrong with that, but you'll never attract more customers than the cool company with the slick design. Of course that's how it always has been.
  • mobjack 8y ago
    There is also a lot unnecessary fear of change when it comes to design and UI. I used to have the same fears, but after working with analytics and AB testing, I realize that they are mostly unfounded. 90% of the time the changes are not going to have much of an impact either way outside of superficial user behavior that doesn't impact the bottom line. It doesn't matter nearly as much as you think in most cases. A lot of design is BS but there is even more BS coming from those fearing change.
  • nathan_long 8y ago
    Yes. And redesigns are specifically the issue. Q: What gesture should be used for answering a call on a touchscreen phone: tapping a button, or swiping? A: I don't know, but once you've picked one and users have learned it, don't suddenly change it without explanation and make your users panic because they can't answer calls.
• rahulchhabra07 8y ago
  Completely 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, and attractive often helps beat the asymptotes in user consumption of a lot of products.
  • bobblywobbles 8y ago
    UI improvements are good, and fixes when the UI is lacking is encouraged. What I am championing against is redesigns, total redesigns. I feel that improvements should be made in incremental changes.
  • deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
• nartz 8y ago
  I think the author is mostly saying that, unless you site is horridly designed, that incremental updates where required can have just as much impact on the bottom line as complete sitewide redesigns, especially when the point of new design is often misguided, i.e. simply trying to keep up with the latest design trends.
• jordache 8y ago
  gimp has a horrible UI. If someone tweaks it to act more like Photoshop, I would use it as a PS replacement. The blur filter in GIMP is almost indistinguishable from the blur filter in PS.
  • meruru 8y ago
    Did you try Krita?
  • bsdubernerd 8y ago
    I started with Gimp and then moved on to other programs. I was actually mad when Gimp 2.x came out, as it changed the UI and most importantly all the keybindings in incompatible ways. For me it's exactly the opposite, and I get pissed every time I hear that. Want PS? Keep using it. I actually found Photoshop one of the worst UIs I ever tried circa ~2005 (I no longer do a lot of photo editing). It reminds me so much of Autodesk's "Autocad" popularity and market penetration it's saddening (hint: autocad is shit too).
  • dchest 8y ago
    There was such effort https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GIMPshop https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GIMPshop
• userbinator 8y ago
  I've noticed that it's a commonly accepted fact in most other areas of software development that mass rewriting of large and extensively-used pieces of code is a bad idea precisely because it'll probably introduce plenty of new bugs that were either never a problem in the existing code, or was noticed and already fixed there in the past. Yet when it comes to UI, those introduced bugs --- breakages of users' existing workflows --- are often dismissed with "sorry, you can't do that anymore" or "here's a (longer and more cumbersome) workaround to do it". I'm sorry, but besides fixing the UI where it impacts the usability of your application, no one is raving about how a redesign makes the application any better. This brings up a great point: if you examine user's comments on redesigns that didn't really fix things, you'll find that the positive ones are all about how it looks or feels and tend to be vague, while the negative ones will almost all be very specific criticisms about precisely which part of their workflows got broken. In any other context the latter would be treated as bug reports --- very clear ones at that --- to be investigated and fixed; but it seems a lot of designers are inclined to simply "close"/ignore them all as "they don't like/understand what I did, maybe they just hate me."
  • calinet6 8y ago
    Good designers will improve visual systems, usability, task efficiency, consistency, symbolism, brand perception, and more concrete things with a redesign. If they don't, they're artists, not UX designers. FWIW, most redesigns I see in the wild are doing most or some part of these very real improvements. That said, qualitative value is still value. Just because user feedback on the visual quality is vague doesn't mean that broader goals weren't achieved—users don't know how to evaluate visual quality, but it can still impact their behavior and perception. Good user researchers will look at outcomes and downstream impact in other behavior after a redesign, and those are often positively impacted. Even if the result is just "users feel our company is more professional and mature," that could be extremely important for company strategy and may very well have been a limiting factor beforehand.
    • raindropm 8y ago
      Yep, not everything that counts can be counted. I see a lot of things got treated as unimportant just because it cannot be measured in number (or we don't know how, yet)
• mnm1 8y ago
  Couldn'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 click or two now take many clicks or are simply no longer doable. The UIs are not intuitive. The shitty designers never design things properly so when I have two windows side by side, they still put two or three menu bars on the left side, leaving no space for the actual content. The redesigns are shit and clearly, they are done too appeal to some dumb ass hipster aesthetic of the designers who clearly don't understand anything about user experience or usability. Just fucking stop before all your users leave.
  • userbinator 8y ago
    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 Internet if it's a public site) is also a good idea. I've "converted"/educated a few coworkers just by them noticing "how did you get it to look like that?" (Sending my CSS back to the original site's owners has resulted in everything from threats of legal action to some actual changes in the right direction.)
    • mnm1 8y ago
      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.
      • userbinator 8y ago
• jslabovitz 8y ago
  > You don't use Google maps because it looks nice, you use it because it tells you where to go to get good tacos. You don't use Facebook because the UI is nice, you use it to talk to your friends and share photos. I actually don't use Google Maps -- because it's a crazy mess of buttons and menus that get in my way of trying to navigate. I actually don't use Facebook -- because it's a horrible dog's breakfast of inscrutable icons and I can't figure out its mental model to save my life. And there are many more sites/apps that frustrate me so much that I abandon them for better-designed choices, or even for nothing at all, because at least doing nothing doesn't make me angry. This function-over-form attitude bugs the hell out of me. People (especially designers) who think that design doesn't really matter as long as the function is okay may not notice the mass of former users who simply throw up their hands and refuse to use their product at all.
  • wnevets 8y ago
    >I actually don't use Google Maps -- because it's a crazy mess of buttons and menus that get in my way of trying to navigate. I actually don't use Facebook -- because it's a horrible dog's breakfast of inscrutable icons and I can't figure out its mental model to save my life. probably because of unnecessary redesigns.
  • taeric 8y ago
    I mean... I get what you are saying, but you are going to have to offer an alternative. Preferrably one that isn't complete garbage. What do you use over Google Maps and Facebook? For Maps, I really don't know of any alternative. And I now make some mapbox-gl applications for the office. There just doesn't seem to be any real alternative. For Facebook? I can actually almost completely unplug. That said, it is the easiest way to get pictures of the kids to family. I could setup a website, but I can't imagine it would be as easy or as effective. With the emphasis on effective. edit:s/primarily/preferrably/
    • colecut 8y ago
      I've begun to question how "effective" the sharing of pictures of my family needs to be. I now think that my pictures only being seen by people explicitly trying to see them is preferable - I'm not marketing my family.
• taeric 8y ago
  Despite my negative comment in another top level post, I actually resonate really well with this. I just got the "try the new twitter" icon. It immediately made me groan. Amusingly, if they hadn't asked, I probably wouldn't have really noticed. Which is kind of the point. If you notice the modernization of something under you, it will annoy you. We have grown to not trust things that change. To the point that the appearance of stability is actually hugely important.
• mattnewport 8y ago
  > UI redesigns, in my opinion, are a waste of time 95% of the time. Probably 90% of everything is a waste of time, the trick is knowing in advance which 10% won't be. I don't really disagree with the overall premise of the article though.
• calinet6 8y ago
  > 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 want to look up: the Aesthetic Usability Effect. Basically, users perceive your product to be more usable if it's aesthetically pleasing. > Summary: Users are more tolerant of minor usability issues when they find an interface visually appealing. This aesthetic-usability effect can mask UI problems and can prevent issue discovery during usability testing. Identify instances of the aesthetic-usability effect in your user research by watching what your users do, as well as listening to what they say. From https://www.nngroup.com/articles/aesthetic-usability-effect/ https://www.nngroup.com/articles/aesthetic-usability-effect/ See also: https://www.nngroup.com/articles/perceived-value/ https://www.nngroup.com/articles/perceived-value/ (other ways users perceive value based on the UI) Of course, this has limits. A rebrand or redesign that, all other things equal, is mostly the same quality as before probably won't get much benefit. I've seen many redesigns and that tends not to be something people do—there's usually a good bump in visual quality in the process. So, regardless of whether you, personally notice the different functionality, many redesigns are actually a success at improving the perceived value, perceived usability, and overall evaluation of the brand, company, and product. People aren't idiots. They don't do this work for no reason. Try to understand and respect the work outside your own department and specialty. Building respect across those boundaries is a rare and valuable thing.
  • blunte 8y ago
    As a user, 9/10 if I notice the UI has changed, it's because I'm unhappy and feeling encumbered or lost. It's very rare that a redesign had me saying, "Oh wow, that's so much better!" So many UI fads have set usability back but get repeated with most redesigns... hamburger menus, login forms that hide password fields until you've entered the username, ultra minimal forms that leave the user guessing what is interactive, text fields with labels only approximated by gray text within that field, and on and on. Many old UIs were uglier but more usable.
• austincheney 8y ago
  I think the article misses the point that many design modifications are micro-optimizations. The entire goal is that the user doesn't notice (cognitively) but is modified in their behavior none the less. These sorts of micro-optimizations frequently made Travelocity hundreds of thousands of dollars when I was their A/B test developer. Adding a phone number to one page added an estimated $3 million in revenue.
  • debaserab2 8y ago
    I don’t think that really qualifies as a redesign on the scale the article describes. It sounds like the author is describing a total UI overhaul, not simply modifying one element on one page of the design.
    • CydeWeys 8y ago
      The way I read the article, it said that none of this stuff was worth doing -- just get it barely usable and then stop making changes. But it clearly is worth doing based on A/B testing and real, measured results. When millions of people are using your site, even micro-optimizations are worth doing.
      • Pxtl 8y ago
        They specifically mention repositioning the logout button to make it more accessible. That sounds like a micro-optimization.
  • bobblywobbles 8y ago
    Like I pointed out, I am all in favor of micro-optimizations, it is complete UI redesigns that have no merit or basis to derive their change upon that I'm against. Adding a phone number is good, yes if it adds $3 million dollars, go ahead and do it!
• deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
• djohnston 8y ago
  this reads like someone who hasn't done a lot of front end work, which to his credit, he admits upfront. design should be like all other forms of code development: iterative and agile.
  • bobblywobbles 8y ago
    I try not to stir trouble and be honest as I write :)
• jrochkind1 8y ago
  something has changed with the HN ranking algorithm lately, no? this is not an interesting article.
  • intrasight 8y ago
    I'd agree that it's not a good article. But it is "interesting" in that the topic of UX redesign is very relevant to the software field.
• dbg31415 8y ago
  What are you basing your assertion off of? Because I've got mountains of A/B tests that validate the UX improvements.
• capex 8y ago
  Redesigns are not just about a fresh look and feel. Features get added, some get removed. New user cohorts join in. Improvements in devices enable new capabilities. Changes in system software enable new ways of interaction. Of course, over time, a redesign becomes necessary.
• sgdesign 8y ago
  This reminds me of the old cliché about advertising. 95% of advertising doesn't work, but the problem is knowing which 95%… Similarly, even granting the author's point that most UI redesigns are misguided, the fact remains that we do want the products we use to somehow improve over time…
• paultopia 8y ago
  This is especially super-double-extra true if your name is Microsoft. Because everything that company has redesigned has become harder to use every time they touch it. Remember what happened after MS acquired Skype and Skype became unusable? Or how people in the business world routinely have to pay for expensive training courses to learn where Microsoft put all the functionality in the latest twisting of Office? Good heavens, please, stop. (Dishonorable mention to Google re: Gmail.)
  • hackerbrother 8y ago
    All I will say is I like their current reboot of office365 Outlook webmail
• ng12 8y ago
  Most redesigns have a goal. More ads, more cross-selling, better engagement are common metrics. Redesigns are very rarely done just to make a site "look better", they're done with some other goal in mind.
• geuszb 8y ago
  I was a bit of that mindset until I worked close to a team that worked on such a redesign for a consumer product with hundreds of millions of users. The really amazing thing to me was that even though the redesign didn't add any new functionality, and there weren't really any glaring usability problems with the previous one, users would still blog about some cool "new feature of the redesign" that had in fact been in product for years. Basically, changing the skin of the product caused users to poke about and try new things. Now the flip side of this is the design upset their routines, and there was certainly an element of that, but it was managed ok by giving people the option to switch back to the old design for a while. On the whole, the redesign caused increased feature awareness and usage, which definitely wouldn't have been my guess going in.
• omosubi 8y ago
  It's funny he used the BMO website redesign as an example because I find that to be one of the best redesigns I have seen in a while, both from a UI and UX perspective. Their old one was absolutely awful
  • bobblywobbles 8y ago
    I did not like how I had to re-learn where everything was! :( Your brain is more nimble than mine, cheers to you! :)
• ilovecaching 8y ago
  It does seem like most of the UI books I read (I'm UI tone deaf) seem to suggest that I should always assume my users are 10x stupider than I think they are. I think "Don't make me think" had a lot of that. Then there are articles about how flat design is awful and we should all stick to what users already know and make sure that when they see a button they know it's a button and stuff. This seems counter to my experience, which is that a redesign is usually like christmas morning. designs just get so stale after awhile, and good UX is literally like art you can touch (virtually). I find myself wanting to go to websites and use products simply because they have good UIs. That's one reason why I HATE AWS. They have the worst UI (and it's gotten a LOT better since I started using it). Google's consistent material design is so clean and fresh. Digital Ocean's is like next level for me.
  • woogiewonka 8y ago
    Ironic that you mention material design and DO as prime examples of good UI when any UX designer who has to deal with the blunders of those two things will tell you that both are examples of horrible UX/UI. I call this me-ism. Because I think it's good, it must be good. Because the company I like is doing it, it must be doing it right. What most people who gripe about design & UI do not seem to understand is that those decisions were made for a reason - usually to bring some sort of value to the table not for the sake of making things look clean and fresh. Another comment here shows some ignorance too by saying that "I was lead to believe that its best to assume users are dumb, but my experience is on the contrary". This comment completely misses the point that users of one app/website will behave differently from users of another app/website and what works for one may not work for the other. At the end of the day there is a business being ran and money being made - the design decisions they make typically impacts their bottom line (for the better) or the design would have been reverted.
• underwater 8y ago
  > ... no one is raving about how a redesign makes the application any better. Let's invert that then. Go and grab a ten year old copy of Gmail, Google maps or Facebook from the Wayback machine and tell users that's what they are going to get. All of a sudden they will be really appreciative of those incremental design changes.
  • cknoxrun 8y ago
    Those three choices are interesting because I would absolutely take the designs of those sites from 10 years ago over the current ones.
    • ddoolin 8y ago
      Google Maps I can't agree with you on...but Gmail and Facebook, certainly.
      • underwater 8y ago
        If Facebook shipped this [1] tomorrow, you don't think people would be up in arms? 1: https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn%3AANd9GcSNUbSjo1hpdamQyyNjENMEUY1Au8y7yZe5D4v9HNG-8XI9Mk3L https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn%3AANd9GcSNUb...
        • asark 8y ago
          ... which one's supposed to be bad? If the website'd[0] had a UI similar to the left back when I briefly tried it in ~2010, I might've stuck around. I stopped using it after a couple weeks because I couldn't figure out where anything was, or where anything I posted was going to "go". In terms of mobile UI, left looks like it'd let me answer the question "why's my badge have a number on it?" very efficiently, and to prioritize badge-number-dropping activities by category, which is great. [EDIT] [0] Yes I know this is a mobile UI, not the desktop website, I'm saying left is clearer than the website was and, from what I see of it on other people's screens, is. [EDIT AGAIN] I'd buy the argument that right has higher "engagement", though. [ONE MORE TIME] man I shouldn't post pre-coffee. I initially took this to be old-left-new-right which is obviously wrong. Basic point stands, I don't get what's wrong with this as a user though it may well make metrics worse.
• SllX 8y ago
  I find the best UI designs to be a blank canvas that you can do whatever you like within, in the way that you would like to do it, going three decades back and three decades forward. Whether it was the Classic Macintosh, or Plan 9, your favorite Lisp machine, or a UNIX Workstation, or the Creative Cloud suite: the best and most productive UI is part of an integrated heuristic system intentionally designed to enable new capabilities while maintaining an honest commitment to its own design traditions. I think in UNIX culture, you can call it the Principle of Least Surprise, or maybe that was the Macintosh? Either way, any good System is going to follow that principle to some degree. If you are a writer, there are many different ways you can go about writing as a profession. You can go for the old pen and paper, a UI that has served writers for millennia. You can opt for a typewriter, and typewriters are still around and work. You can customize your emacs environment to the Nth degree and probably port it forward to every new laptop you buy until the day you die. Maybe you have a PC from the 80s you run WordStar on and pump out best selling novels about once or twice a decade. Or you can hop onto this invite-only hype train called Writely and get to work there, and wakeup one morning to find it is now called Google Docs, everything changed and nothing makes sense. Maybe tomorrow Google Docs will be something else. Or if you have it there anyway, you might even opt to write in Mathematica or Microsoft Excel or OmniOutliner or Notepad, rather than install yet another application, this one styling itself as a “word processor”. All you need is a place to put words where you can change them. It isn’t the system that is special. It isn’t the tool that is cool. All that matters is the one using the tool, and all the mind behind the matter manipulating the tool really wants to do is whatever thing they were originally using it to do in the first place. Does that mean software shouldn’t have new capabilities? Absolutely they should! So long as they are there to serve the users, and you don’t plan to yank the rug out from under them. That means capabilities should be added judiciously and with intent. Improvements made where there is room for improvement. UI changes made to accommodate the addition of these new capabilities, within a metaphorical structure that the user can mentally place it within. “Less is more”. Applied judiciously, and conscientiously with empathy towards your users, those three words might save you and them a lot of bother. Applied without constraint or concern for your users, those three words are just a curse as you take away from your users and hand wave their concerns because you launched a feature too soon or in a slipshod manner and you suddenly have commitment issues. This perhaps turned into something of a rant. I often find the software I am most delighted to use is the kind that looks the same as it did 10 years ago, give or take some minute differences. The software I am never delighted to use is the kind that changed how it worked because some designer got their hands on it in the last 10 years and broke a usage pattern they didn’t think was important, my usage pattern incidentally, and most of those changes were not so much driven by technological changes, but by whatever flavor of the day weed was making its way through the UI/UX world that month. My only defense against their whims seems to be to use tools I have the source for and if it doesn’t exist in that form yet, make it myself.
• Haga 8y ago
  Ui redesigns usually throw away user experience. Users who do not recognize your software and its workflow anymore can easily converted to another more traditional product. So a ui redesign is a gift for competitors. But sometimes, there is no real ui, just a slum of drop down options where all the options are crammed into - alphabetical or sorted by a bad Fridays mood. Those that will tell you that these uis are okay, are usually power users who do not use the ui but hotkeys. Usually those powerusers do not use other products but recommend their own mess. (blender/gimp) This is what ui designers are here for, if you're a developer, you are not there audience and most of the time you might even be a bad influence, due to your lack of knowledge on the ui conventions of the rest of the world.
• yoz-y 8y ago
  My main objection would be to the 95% number which was pulled out of nowhere. Redesigns for a redesigns case are bad (Dropbox), sometimes they are done not-so-well but for very good reasons (Slack) and sometimes they are pretty much necessary to keep people in (Apple Watch UI between 1.0 and 3.0). > People use applications because of their purpose, not because it is pleasing to the eye. Maaybe? But people will definitely avoid your application if it is too ugly. Many Mac users will generally avoid applications that are not well integrated in the OS. Personally I spent quite some time finding alternatives to applications that were very useful that I did not find pleasing to the eye (Audacity, PS3 Media Server, GIMP). If you need to work with something a lot, you absolutely prefer for it to be pleasing to look at.
• tanilama 8y ago
  I tend to agree. Google supposedly has an army of good designers, with their constant redesigns, my first thoughts are always that I wish the redesign never happens, but later because I stick to it, I get used to it so that I dislike it a little less until next redesign happens. Let’s face it. People aren’t really that welcoming towards redesign, if given a choice, they probably would choose to have the business as usual. And aesthetics matters only to certain degree, and if it stands out it becomes distracting. I wish people consider that familiarity should be an important factor in considering whether to change UI or not, UI can be good if they choose to look unimpressive, for utilities it might be better that way. And real world appliance really changes the design so dracstically as software, a micro-oven looks like a micro-oven, a Coca-Cola can looks like the same like forever. A car always has 4 wheels. Why on earth software just changes the information flow randomly just because they can? This doesn’t make sense.
  • hhs 8y ago
    This happened to me with the recent change with Gmail. I was quite sad to see the loss of UI simplicity when they tweaked the layout and aesthetics. I loved their previous iteration because things moved quickly. I'm surprised with the redesign since, when you log in, there's a bit of a loading delay. But what am I going to do? I reminisce about the old version and adapt.
• Aegaeus10111 8y ago
  UI - or any other design is not primarily about aesthetics. Where the author says, "You don't use Google maps because it looks nice, you use it because it tells you where to go", he's right, but it took good design to make you be able to use maps and to get value from the increasing amount and level of complexity of info therein. That all said, I agree with him that many UI redesigns are pointless and expensive. Those tend to be the ones that don't bring new value to the user - just try to do the same old thing in a "modern" or (yikes - I hate this word) "fresh" way. Good design of anything is hard, UI's are no exception. When you go beyond UI to uX, you enter the world of motivation, intent, expectations, and other emotional fuzziness. The design job gets harder by 10 or 100x. But it's there that you find the good reasons to consider a UI redesign.
• yason 8y ago
  Worst thing is coupling UI redesign with changing the set of features. First, you lose a familiar interface and you don't know where to find even the existing features. Then you realise that the feature you're looking for is no longer there. Maybe it will be brought back online later or will be replaced by another, "better", feature later. UI redesigns are sometimes just plain unavoidable but they should be done separately from other changes. Much like you want to commit the code reformatting change separate from functional changes so you know you're just changing whitespace basically and there's nothing that should break your codebase. As a user I can only absorb a certain amount of change at a time: I can learn a new UI if I know I'll find the familiar pieces somewhere in there. And I can accept new features or old ones being changed to different ones if I know the UI will still be the same.
• superkuh 8y ago
  Most redesigns make things worse because anything re-designed in the last 10 years has been redesigned for computer interfaces that are small, have bad mechanical user interfaces, and can't even hold open a TCP connection. If it isn't clear, I'm talking about smart phones.
• nothis 8y ago
  UI isn’t about “pleasing the eye”. Stick with software design, dude!
• tw1010 8y ago
  Gotta increase GDP somehow.
• masswerk 8y ago
  A redesign should be never about yourself but about your users only. The raison d'être of the UI is not representation. If you're still eager to do a periodical redesign, keep it to your error pages. So did I, just today [0]. This way, the web may also stay a fun place, full of potential discoveries. [0] https://www.masswerk.at/404 https://www.masswerk.at/404
• achow 8y ago
  > The people who use your application, don't like change. They like to go on autopilot after they've learned something, it's just plain easier for them. This oft repeated quote. The thing is if this was the case we wouldn't have moved beyond command line interface. That was hands down the most performant user interface design for the people who were in the know. But not so for new users and when new commands needed to be introduced.
• txt 8y ago
  +1 ..I've been buying coffee recently from 7-11 in the morning, and I noticed there credit card swiper UI. When I use my debit card, ive always used 'credit' not debit, and im sure a huge % of people do the same, and here are the steps... Swipe card Is this a debit card? Y/N I Click No Do you want cash back? Y/N I Click No Then you must click cancel to run to bring up credit option ( but no instructions to do so) Then click credit, then click okay to the amount. Then its finally completes the purchase.. now each step takes a few seconds after each click, and you must use there stylus because just usingyour fingers wont work! I know this is a random comment, but UI related and ivd just noticed this recently, every 711 here on long island has the same machines! It doesnt seem like alot of steps but i bet the lines would move alot faster if they tweaked the UI a tiny bit!
• hombre_fatal 8y ago
  Predictably, the title alone is crack to HNers. If only stakeholders and designers would ask our opinion first, we'd save them the trouble! Between the author patting himself on the back for coming up with "don't do things for no reason" and "don't make things worse," he provides this criteria: > The only time a UI should be updated is if it impacts the ability of a user to actually use your application. This criteria can be rewritten "only change to make improvements," but this is an eternal challenge with anything. The previous UI wasn't handed down by god. It, too, was designed, and the only thing it has going for it compared to the global optimum is that it at least exists. And like any other system, it was built under different requirements with different unknowns. It accumulates debt and falls into the same traps of any other rewrite. Most importantly, it has to interface with actual humans. I can sympathize with their rant over grating redesigns, but it's too easy to lambast things that go wrong and then plant your flag of "Yep, don't do this. You're welcome." It contributes to the toxic cynicism rife in our field.
  • alexandercrohde 8y ago
    I think that's a deliberately uncharitable interpretation. If you're admitting there are problems in the previous redesign (and you are), then why not fix those pieces rather than redesigning the colors, icons, and entire rest of the interface? It's not so different from an engineer who rewrites a whole service because it has 3 bugs. Almost never worth.
  • subjectsigma 8y ago
    Congratulations on writing the only reasonable comment in this dumpster-fire of a thread
  • sinker 8y ago
    I expected to at least be entertained by the article but it's so full of faulty reasoning I stopped reading about three quarters of the way through. It's full of platitudes and has little critical reasoning to support such a broad statement as its title. >> "If you possess a good eye and steady hand, you should feel compelled to create something that looks pleasing" Okay.. Goes on to include a big picture of Michelangelo's "David" to suggest that designers should strive to create masterpieces in the same vein...? >> "People use applications because of their purpose, not because it is pleasing to the eye." Another baseless generality. The first part is obviously true, but it doesn't follow that people don't care about appearance. >> "The only time a UI should be updated is if it impacts the ability of a user to actually use your application." Another unsupported opinion phrased as an absolute. >> "It hurts retention" This would have been a natural point to include actual data. Nonetheless the article falls back on making generalizations about people's behavior. >> "Does it really add up, or are you just giving designers busywork that doesn't amount to anything in the end? Do we have concrete evidence that what we are doing will provide benefit to the company or users, or just feel that it would be better if the UI was redesigned? Take a minute, think about that one." There's not a single piece of concrete evidence in this entire article.
• wamsachel 8y ago
  THANK YOU #sent from my vim
• Quequau 8y ago
  Something that I've been thinking about, perhaps because I'm a long time Reddit user, is how often when it comes to redesigns the motivations of those people funding and making the decisions do not actually have the interests of the existing users as their focus.
• buboard 8y ago
  I don't know about the designers, they are surely a big waste of my time as a user. Google is particularly guilty of this (or i just use their products more). Every new UI feels slower, and i m particularly aggravated by the sloppily animated "cards" and esp. the progress bars that are not even progressing, they re just looping. Adsense is much much worse than it used to be, buttons are not even responsive (because wait, animations haven't finished yet). I don't know why everybody is doing it, but it seems like a casualty of an echo chamber .
• jimnotgym 8y ago
  I have some sympathy with this article. I work in enterprise systems, and nice looking UI helps people learn the first time... Then they really want it to stay exactly the same for years in end. Same tab order, same menus, exactly the same.
• baccheion 8y ago
  Maybe they're a waste of time with apps, as the screen/window is small (ie, what's there to change?). On the other hand, people become bored by stale/outdated interfaces and move on. Also, times/trends change and there's usually a need to keep up. Enterprise software and other gluts of sh*t may not need the same updates and are usually terrible from the beginning. If a redesign is done without attention to what's necessary, then it could also be a waste of time. It's especially bad if the newer design is worse and/or more alienating, as that tends to results in a loss of users.
• WhuzzupDomal 8y ago
  This article is a joke. If you don't like UI maybe you should stick to DOS
• alexandernst 8y ago
  I backend guy talking about frontend.
  • Tepix 8y ago
    Yes. But will a frontend or designer guy question what he is doing in the same way?
  • bobblywobbles 8y ago
    It helps at the very least to learn another's perspective. Again I'm not calling out front-end designers, nor do I feel their work is not valuable.
• cortic 8y ago
  I hate UI redesigns, absolutely hate them; From the end user point of view, and from 15+ years of webdesign, if its working why the hell are we fixing it? Well I'll tell you why, since i asked; And its neither for the end user or designers benefit. Its for the non-user, or the not-yet-user, the people who were put off by the old design. We are like fish, that have been caught, wondering why the fisherman is throwing nets into other parts of the sea.. Michelangelo's David; Trying not to read too much into the cropping, it may be innocent enough.. Though sometimes i think we've reverted back to the dark ages catholic cleansing (chopping off of stone penises) mentality about such things.
• DaOne256 8y ago
  One of the best articles ever on HN. I agree with you 100%! I've often thought this with web pages or apps with a new design. Most of the time the new one has only 80% of the functionality the old design had. I stopped updating most apps on my phone because of that.
• cyborpunc 8y ago
  I am working in a startup and can definitely say that aesthetically better and modern designs help attract better talent (specifically techies). People judge by the looks.
• devbranch 8y ago
  I think UI's are the main factor in the average user's perception of quality. While re-designs may be annoying to old users, they're necessary to avoid potential new users thinking the product is outdated. The UI should always look brand new.
• dhbradshaw 8y ago
  Great UI is extremely valuable. The challenge is that one of the qualities of a great UI is that it's stable. The UI is the interface between your app and the customer. It's like an API. No one arbitrarily changes APIs and expects it to go well. But, perhaps because people are slightly more adaptable than code, UI gets changed without warning or choice all the time. This is a unilateral break in the implicit contract that we make with users. Of course people complain!
  • dhbradshaw 8y ago
    When considering UI changes, it's worth thinking how people use your app. Some apps are used only occasionally, so that effectively everyone is a beginner every time. In this case, there's room for rapid UI evolution and improvement. Other apps are deeper and more feature rich and will be used by a given person for hours each day. You'll have to be very careful in changing these apps if you don't want irate users.
  • nojvek 8y ago
    > The UI is the interface between your app and the customer. It's like an API. No one arbitrarily changes APIs Love it . I’m stealing this one.
• ojr 8y ago
  I don't think Instagram, one of the most used software user interfaces think redesigns are a waste of time, they redesigned to be similar to Snapchat and was able to create a new user experience that engaged users and was able to be monetized efficiently through advertisements
• alexandercrohde 8y ago
  Entirely on-point. When I think of the major apps I use today that I do like and ask What new UI do they need, the answer is none (gmail, hn, venmo). In fact, some UIs would do well to hide the noise and look more like HN than Yahoo (e.g. github) When I think of the major apps I use today but dislike, the reason is usually performance, not pretty icons (slack, uber). Sometimes the redesign itself is an obstacle (reddit). When I think of apps that COULD be redesigned (e.g. AWS) I'd want it to happen once, be engineer-focused, and entirely about logical layout rather than graphics.
  • mushbino 8y ago
    This is a good point to make. I think the author has just had bad experiences with designers, as have I. Gmail, venmo, etc. don't need a redesign because they were thoughtfully designed through a good process in the first place. To speak to your AWS example; right now I'm in the process of redesigning an incredibly complex product from the ground up because is was so poorly designed the first time around. The users complain all day, the field engineers complain every day. A total redesign is our only hope to make it as a company longer-term. The original engineers chose Material as the component style, which is terrible for a data-dense app. So as a part of all this, we're transitioning to a new design system that increases data density, readability, and has more component options to make actions absolutely clear and make space usage more efficient. We're also including in-app terminal support for those that prefer to use it that way. Also, certain parts of the FE will be metadata driven, where it makes sense for business logic. TL;DR - This is a very broad topic that the author covers very superficially from their limited experience, but I absolutely loathe bad designers and poorly thought out redesigns.
    • reitanqild 8y ago
      > Gmail, venmo, etc. don't need a redesign because they were thoughtfully designed through a good process in the first place. Eh. Gmail is redesigned from time to time.
• codingdave 8y ago
  There is a difference between UI and UX. The UI can stay static if the UX does the job. But if the UX isn't good, then you absolutely need a re-design. UI often comes with that re-design, but if that is all you notice, you are missing the point.
• vipulved 8y ago
  If you think that design/redesign is a waste of time, a good exercise would be to try and understand why fashion constantly evolves, ie why you no longer see people in bellbottoms and corsets.
  • bobblywobbles 8y ago
    I value design, like I pointed out earlier. What I find lacking in value are total redesigns where there isn't concrete reasons why the redesign should take place. For what basis is the redesign on? It "feels" better? I'd be more comfortable with a more complete reason.
• oftenwrong 8y ago
  Redesigns usually improve the "wow"-factor - great for sales demos. They are often detrimental to actual use of N hours per week.
• akras14 8y ago
  I think the 80/20 rule applies when it comes to mature products. 20% of redesign is useful and make products better. 80% are neutral at best, and breaking at worst. If it’s not broken, don’t fix it. https://www.alexkras.com/death-by-redesign/ https://www.alexkras.com/death-by-redesign/
• Ozzie_osman 8y ago
  There's so much this article misses: - most large companies a/b test their redesigns. If your company isn't big enough (for the tools or traffic needed to a/b test), then yeah, you're left to judgment calls. Really good a/b tests will actually capture things like "existing users initially hate it but eventually end up using the product more" - a lot of UI redesigns are driven by effect on new users, which might be more important to the company. Think about it, if you're already using the product, you probably don't care what it looks like too much (and might be annoyed if it changes). For new users, anesthetics leave a lasting first impression. Yes, at many small companies without data, redesigns can be a waste of time and even harmful. But that doesn't mean they should always be avoided.
• xtiansimon 8y ago
  The OP article is criticism-lite, but the topic is never more important with multi-platform phone, tablet, and web development. I believe we're post App-Gold-Rush era. You're not so excited anymore to run off and join a startup and leave a good paying job at a steady corporate gig. In that setting who's going to rock the boat? Who's going to stand up and question, Is this really the right direction? Everyone is getting paid. Currently my own whipping post example is the smart phone app, Transit [1]. A redesign last fall hobbled several key features, - transit line on-time status only shows when there is a problem, but it's reassuring to see the status has updated and is OK. - map scrolling is key for wayfinding, now only half of the screen real estate is scrollable before you accidentally cancel your line selection, and exit the screen. These fracking UI changes are worse than useless, and just the few that come to mind. What they should have done was tackle real issues, - Chaining transfers--How long is the wait for my next connection at a future destination? Currently, the future destination shows the connection clock from _now_, and now when I get there. I can think of at least 3 reasons why this is important. - In a loop line, you can't see the next bus when you're at the start/end. During commute times on the busiest lines delays have a ripple effect. The schedule is blown. How long is the wait? Can I do something else while I wait? I was an avid evangelist for Transit. Now, I just wish a competitor would hit the scene and bury that turd. [1]: https://transitapp.com/ https://transitapp.com/
  • tln 8y ago
    Do you think they prioritized the newest users/prospects versus power users?
    • xtiansimon 8y ago
      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 for every user from the very start. The failure in the redesign is to leave the 'page' or 'modal' UX behind in favor of this hybrid/gesture controlled marble on maze UX. They hit a home run from the beginning, and fracked it up. What's the 'nature' of a map? It's to be as big as possible, and yet they've layerd the schedule and took 50% of the screen away from the map. If there's a difference among users, it's found when you live in a transit-rich community, like I do in NYC Metro (and you need a good app like Transit was). If you live in the sticks and there's only one line, then you open the app, check the schedule and you're done. This is why I believe this _criticism_ is so important. I think we need to have a way to articulate these choices. Maybe a critical voice asking _Should we make this UX change at all?_, _Are we staring at our navel?_ Which is to say, in our own little bubble? Are these changes going to improve the software? Or, are we only showing off so we can justify our employment? If they wanted to do such a radical redesign, why not fork the project? They could capture 'new users' with the Transit Marble Maze app.
• rossdavidh 8y ago
  Well, look at all of the UI redesigns on HN, and that site is good! Oh, wait...
• ramijames 8y ago
  We've been building out a lot of the foundational technology on EOS. It's part of our roadmap for 2019 to hire some Kotlin/Android developers. If you're interested in EOS/Blockchain/Cryptography/Mobile, we should have a chat. https://get-scatter.com/careers https://get-scatter.com/careers
• ivanhoe 8y ago
  Redesign is not just about visuals. If you change a few gradients/hues and add/remove rounded corners depending on the latest web fashion, then definitely you're wasting time and money - unfortunately, that's very common patter with companies, specially larger brands. However improving usability of the UI based on some actual metrics and research is definitely never a waste of time. In my experience absolutely every new app needs at least a few UX upgrades after some time, since it's impossible to get every detail of the UI design right from the first go.
  • bobblywobbles 8y ago
    I'm in favor of UX upgrades as you say, but not total redesigns. Incremental improvements are best in my opinion.
• paulsutter 8y ago
  Most UI redesigns I’ve seen happened because people (usually leaders) get tired of the old design and want visible progress (two really bad reasons for a redesign)
• franzwong 8y ago
  It depends. Pick an old movie and see what the actors wore. They wore the same style of suit but they didn't wore the same style of casual wear. Google search page doesn't change much, but online bank UI has improved a lots.
• bigbadgoose 8y ago
  The new Google Calendar is pretty sweet though, especially the day view when you have multiple calendars displayed
• tuxracer 8y ago
  Kept waiting to see where the data would come in and it never did. This is entirely data-free conjecture. This is the engineering equivalent of an article calling out a particular medicine as being ineffective purely on the basis of "I feel like it doesn't do anything so people should stop taking it".
  • bobblywobbles 8y ago
    It is completely my opinion yes, and since I primarily work (and enjoy back-end work), this is a view from the other side of the office. I do feel there are valid points but no, I didn't collect any data on this post.
• blessedRmeek 8y ago
  Blogging is a waste of time. Get to work.
• nojvek 8y ago
  The entire article can be summarized in one line. > The only time a UI should be updated is if it impacts the ability of a user to actually use your application. Amen. Words that could never be more true.
• soobrosa 8y ago
  99% of the time, yes, except when no. http://tonsky.me/blog/github-redesign/ http://tonsky.me/blog/github-redesign/
• Aegaeus10111 8y ago
  Bad design choices are a waste of time. Good ones are necessary. from an article about TOR as a great example: Tor needs a lot of users to create anonymity, if Tor was hard to use new users wouldn't adopt it so quickly. Because new users won't adopt it, Tor becomes less anonymous. By this reasoning it is easy to see that usability isn't just a design choice of Tor but a security requirement to make Tor more secure. https://skerritt.blog/how-does-tor-really-work/ https://skerritt.blog/how-does-tor-really-work/
• mvkel 8y ago
  A lot of the debate in this thread seems to be conflating UI redesigns with UX redesigns. A pure UI redesign inherently should not change the overall user experience. So yes, one could argue it _is_ a waste of time, because it has no impact on the user's experience of the product. UI is superficial, by design (heh).