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I suspect that orgs perform arbitrary UI redesigns for the same reasons supermarkets occasionally reorganise their product layout. It stops customers getting to
by jbreckmckye 6y ago
I suspect that orgs perform arbitrary UI redesigns for the same reasons supermarkets occasionally reorganise their product layout. It stops customers getting too efficient at extracting only the value they think they want.
- majewsky 6y agoI can see that argument for apps that want to sell products or show ads, but what about GP's example? What value is there in getting in the way of a software developer trying to create apps for your platform? My personal guess is that most UI redesigns are busywork explicitly created to justify the existence of the UI design department. (And I don't say this to throw shade on UI designers in general. This could just as well be the new manager trying to keep his headcount, or the new lead designer removing all traces of the previous designer's work over personal quarrels.)
- jbreckmckye 6y agoPart of it may be the same reason that developers love to rewrite code: all creative works over a certain age accumulate compromises, and newcomers don't understand the reason for those compromises. So a new set of designers, like a new set of developers, feel compelled to "rationalise" what they've inherited. Sometimes they succeed, and build a much more logical information architecture... but many times the new design succumbs to the same entropy that that the original one did.