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Can anyone explain why companies like to make unnecessary design changes? It seems to be that there’s no benefit to this tab change. Other products like Discord

Can anyone explain why companies like to make unnecessary design changes? It seems to be that there’s no benefit to this tab change. Other products like Discord and Google Meet have also been making slight UI changes recently and I find it nothing but a nuisance.

scoutt 5y ago
There is a certain amount of allowable "thumb twiddling" time. My educated guess is that someone working in a private company has to justify their salary, even when there is nothing to do. So they come up with "absolutely necessary work to do" by inventing themselves solutions and "improvements" for problems nobody has. Now we have a team of +10 people doing meetings, colorful charts, analysis, etc. Including writing blog posts like "changing the world and fighting a pandemic by changing the size of the tabs". Bosses raise the head and see all the cubicles busy. Everybody is happy. Now that it's released it's time to think about the changes for the next version. PS: I'm a happy Firefox user since it was just "mozilla".
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
handrous 5y ago
1) actually-necessary design work on a product is very boom-and-bust. 2) for years now, tech companies have hired enough designers for the boom periods, rather than contracting or just dealing with longer design cycles—I suspect this is Apple's influence leading to much larger design budgets and resultant empire-building. 3) bust-period design work doesn't get one promotions or look as impressive in a portfolio as boom-period design work, so design departments or individuals are heavily incentivized to create artificial "booms" both so they have enough work to do and so that the work is helping everyone advance their career. These align well with product manager career advancement incentives (everyone loves screen shots) so they get green-lit. These are the unnecessary and often ill-advised redesigns that we see so often.
allyourhorses 5y ago
Because they retain oversized permanent UX teams with insufficient work to go around. The result is endless user punishment. Mozilla could improve their browser and save money in one simple step
- mixmastamyk 5y ago
  First they'd need to revert all the oddities of the last few years, like the growing url bar, now weird tabs, and hardcoded colors in about.
Workaccount2 5y ago
I don't know if I'll ever forgive Google for killing blob emojis
- vb6sp6 5y ago
  you can get them as a sticker pack. "the blobs live on" https://9to5google.com/2018/07/17/google-blob-emoji-gboard-sticker-pack/ https://9to5google.com/2018/07/17/google-blob-emoji-gboard-s...
layer8 5y ago
UI visual design has a propensity for bike shedding.

scoutt 5y ago

There is a certain amount of allowable "thumb twiddling" time. My educated guess is that someone working in a private company has to justify their salary, even when there is nothing to do. So they come up with "absolutely necessary work to do" by inventing themselves solutions and "improvements" for problems nobody has. Now we have a team of +10 people doing meetings, colorful charts, analysis, etc. Including writing blog posts like "changing the world and fighting a pandemic by changing the size of the tabs". Bosses raise the head and see all the cubicles busy. Everybody is happy. Now that it's released it's time to think about the changes for the next version. PS: I'm a happy Firefox user since it was just "mozilla".

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

handrous 5y ago

1) actually-necessary design work on a product is very boom-and-bust. 2) for years now, tech companies have hired enough designers for the boom periods, rather than contracting or just dealing with longer design cycles—I suspect this is Apple's influence leading to much larger design budgets and resultant empire-building. 3) bust-period design work doesn't get one promotions or look as impressive in a portfolio as boom-period design work, so design departments or individuals are heavily incentivized to create artificial "booms" both so they have enough work to do and so that the work is helping everyone advance their career. These align well with product manager career advancement incentives (everyone loves screen shots) so they get green-lit. These are the unnecessary and often ill-advised redesigns that we see so often.

allyourhorses 5y ago

Because they retain oversized permanent UX teams with insufficient work to go around. The result is endless user punishment. Mozilla could improve their browser and save money in one simple step

mixmastamyk 5y ago
First they'd need to revert all the oddities of the last few years, like the growing url bar, now weird tabs, and hardcoded colors in about.

Workaccount2 5y ago

I don't know if I'll ever forgive Google for killing blob emojis

vb6sp6 5y ago
you can get them as a sticker pack. "the blobs live on" https://9to5google.com/2018/07/17/google-blob-emoji-gboard-sticker-pack/ https://9to5google.com/2018/07/17/google-blob-emoji-gboard-s...

layer8 5y ago

UI visual design has a propensity for bike shedding.