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It feels like every redesign of every major website I've ever seen has been accompanied by an outcry from users who hate the changes -- Reddit, Facebook, Stack

It feels like every redesign of every major website I've ever seen has been accompanied by an outcry from users who hate the changes -- Reddit, Facebook, Stack Overflow, now Wikipedia... Sometimes this is because the new design is missing features or capabilities compared to the previous version (reddit for example [EDIT: I have been re-educated on this point; I should have chosen a different example here]), or because it introduced changes that are contrary to how the product used to work (such as when Facebook switched from a chronological feed to The Algorithm). But just as often it feels like users just dislike change. The new thing feels wrong because it's unfamiliar, not because it's objectively worse. The Stack Overflow redesign a couple years back drew so much outrage at the time! I hated it too! But now that we're all used to it, if you go back in the archives and look at the previous design... it was worse. The new design was better, it just took some getting used to. Maybe it's just because I don't habitually run with my browser set full-screen, so I'm not seeing all the "wasted space" people are complaining about, but I gotta say the new design looks a lot better to me aesthetically, and I like having the sticky sidebar available as I'm reading, updating as I scroll to give context to where I am in the doc. (And I also like how it goes away when I reduce the window size, just as it should.) Not that I'm saying you shouldn't like what you like. I don't envy what designers are up against, I guess is my point.

kerpotgh 4y ago
Out of those redesigns, the worst was Reddit and I still use the old version. It’s so much more info dense, much less forced engagement, easier to look at and browse etc.
dooglius 4y ago
If the cost of adjusting to the new thing is greater than the "objective" benefit it provides, then it is better not to change.
- outsidetheparty 4y ago
  I don't agree, on a couple of different axes. If we take as given, for the sake of argument, that the new thing is objectively better than the old thing, never changing means never getting those benefits. Stagnate permanently, rather than pay the temporary price of adjusting to change? Also, userbases are not static. New users would don't need to pay the "cost" of adjusting, because they have nothing to adjust from; and if the new thing is objectively better than the old design, then it will attract more new users than the inferior old thing. (Note I am not trying to make the case that the new wikipedia design is objectively better or worse than the previous one; that's an argument nobody will win.)
- babypuncher 4y ago
  The cost of adjusting is a one time expense, whereas the objective benefits offered by a good redesign continue to provide new value for as long as the new design is in use. I see your argument as one against frequent redesigns, not one against redesigns in general. If you change up your UI every 12 months, even if each iteration is technically better, you are causing problems for your users. Wikipedia's last redesign happened 12 years ago.
yjftsjthsd-h 4y ago
Okay, but sometimes the new one is objectively worse; Reddit's new design massively reduced information density and was also the deployment point for a lot of user-hostile behaviors.
- Kiro 4y ago
  That's still subjective, even if it's shared by many. I prefer new reddit.
  - yjftsjthsd-h 4y ago
    Okay, then everything is subjective and the new design can't claim to be superior (since it's only subjective) and we're left with the cost of switching to a new design for no good reason.
  - Firmwarrior 4y ago
    Is there a thing about the new Reddit that's good? (Other than it being good for the shareholders that it aggressively it pushes people into their crummy popup- and tracking-infested app)
- yamtaddle 4y ago
  Having to click to see all the posts on a page that's heavier and slower than the original ought to be regarded as an outright error. If you're going to show less stuff, it should at least be faster.
coder543 4y ago
The problem with the Reddit redesign has nothing to do with missing features or capabilities. Even on an insanely powerful computer with a gigabit fiber optic connection, it is unbelievably slow compared to the old one. It also implements a bunch of antipatterns like "view more comments" and relentless prompts to switch to their mobile app. I also can't remember a single actual improvement that "New Reddit" has received in the years since it launched. "Unfamiliar" is not the problem there. We've had "New Reddit" for years and it is still confusingly bad.
- outsidetheparty 4y ago
  Fair enough, based on this and sibling comments, Reddit was a poor example for me to have chosen. I didn't start using that site until after the redesign, and am not a heavy user now -- possibly I was misinformed, but I had the impression that the "new" design was launched with a lot missing and took a while to get back to feature parity. Personally for aesthetics and usability I greatly prefer the new design -- the old one looks unreadably cramped to me --but the one test I was able to run before they throttled me as a suspected bot showed the new design weighing about nine times as many kb as the old for a given page. That's objectively not good.
- jesprenj 4y ago
  You can still use old reddit versions: http://old.reddit.com http://old.reddit.com. http://old.reddit.com./.compact http://old.reddit.com./.compact
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - waterhouse 4y ago
    Also, you can use the Redirector extension (as exhibited in the article) to match any Reddit URLs and redirect you to the old.reddit.com version. I do this.
babypuncher 4y ago
This is a tale as old as software itself. Some of the hyperbole in yesterday's thread decrying the redesign was laughable.
paganel 4y ago
I'm still only using old.reddit and i.reddit.com years after their re-design. The moment they get rid of those I'll probably stop using reddit completely.
pier25 4y ago
I love the new Wikipedia but the Reddit redesign is an attrocity. I still use the old site with RES.
VancouverMan 4y ago
> The new design was better, it just took some getting used to. I often don't find that to be the case. While I don't use it much these days, any time I do end up on Reddit with its newer design, I find it painful to even just read the content there. I've tried to give the new design a chance, but the user experience is just so atrocious. To use that site, I have to switch the "www" in the URL to "old" to get the earlier design that's at least mostly usable. That isn't the only example of "improvements" leaving me worse off. It happened with Slashdot, with Firefox's UI, with GNOME 3 (and later), with Windows 8 (and later), and with pgAdmin 4, among numerous other pieces of software that I use. About a month ago, I booted up an old laptop running Windows 2000 and an ancient version of Firefox. It's been many years since I'd used them, but I was shocked at how pleasant the experience was. It made their current user interface and user experience regressions far more blatant. Unfortunately, based on what I've seen of it so far, Wikipedia will likely be added to that list of mine, too.
armchairhacker 4y ago
Wikipedia is an example of good website redesign: overall I think the new site is better and has some added benefits (TOC sidebar, fixed-width page layout) and doesn’t unnecessarily change or remove things. But Wikipedia also allows people to resort to the old style. Which I think is even better because it satisfies those who simply dislike change no matter what. And it also helps in case the new redesign is not so good… Overall I think customizability is the best, but it’s also the hardest because you must now support multiple styles and layouts instead of one. For a simple site like Wikipedia it is reasonable though
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
pessimizer 4y ago
> But just as often it feels like users just dislike change. The new thing feels wrong because it's unfamiliar, not because it's objectively worse. Avoiding change is an entirely valid concern, which you also share. I say this assuming that you would be upset if I moved your steering wheel to the opposite side of your car overnight, or switched your gas and brake pedals. Being not "objectively worse" is not nearly enough. A change, at the very least, has to be a significant improvement to make up for retraining time/effort.
- outsidetheparty 4y ago
  I wasn't trying to suggest that "not objectively worse" was the baseline, of course! What I was trying to express was that in many cases, it seems that users interpret a new design as worse simply because it's different and unfamiliar, rather than based on its objective merits.
andrewmutz 4y ago
> It feels like every redesign of every major website I've ever seen has been accompanied by an outcry from users who hate the changes -- Reddit, Facebook, Stack Overflow, now Wikipedia... This isn't because most people don't like the changes, it's because outrage and anger go viral. Whether its about tech or about politics, no one engages with content about people who are happy. They engage with content that demonstrates anger or controversy. One day we will build some media products that aren't supported by advertising, and we'll start to optimize products for something other than "number of eyeballs". At that point we will see content that actually informs the reader. Until then, get used to every molehill being portrayed as a mountain.
- outsidetheparty 4y ago
  > This isn't because most people don't like the changes, it's because outrage and anger go viral That is a very good point I hadn't considered at all! How many people are going to be motivated to go online and rant about how much they love the new ${foo}? They're mostly just going to quietly go use ${foo} some more.
noodleman 4y ago
I think the Reddit redesign deserves criticism. The redesign did nothing to improve or unify the UX between desktop and mobile while introducing a bunch of obnoxious dark patterns. But Wikipedia is better for it's redesign. I think change is just difficult for some to accept.
wruza 4y ago
The Stack Overflow redesign a couple years back drew so much outrage at the time! I hated it too! But now that we're all used to it, if you go back in the archives and look at the previous design... it was worse. The new design was better, it just took some getting used to. Let me suggest another hypothesis: both designs are equivalent^ and you just hated the feeling of unfamiliarity twice. That feeling passes with time like everything does. Users don’t like change, that’s the correct part. New is better - that part may be incorrect by exactly the same argument. Users don’t like change-back too, and you are a user. Btw, the first thing I’ve added to stylebot on SO was a bigger width for the content column, so that most of regular code snippets wouldn’t have an h-scroll. Btw2, I almost screwed up my comment twice because someone decided to redesign the text selection popup menu on latest ios 16.x. They now AI/ML/whatever cut-copy-paste button positions, so my muscle memory hits the wrong one constantly. Thankfully, HN rules don’t allow me to explain what I think of this “new design”. With years I understood one thing: you won’t be heard and the only reasonable action to take is to ignore. I believe 90% of users do just that - say f it and ignore, because the alternative is to shout into the void. ^ ignoring new functionality (if any) which could have been added without redesigning.
- outsidetheparty 4y ago
  > Let me suggest another hypothesis: both designs are equivalent^ and you just hated the feeling of unfamiliarity twice Nah. I've been talked out of the Reddit one, but this one I'll stand by; the old design SO still feels familiar, but the typography was crap.
  - hexo 4y ago
    No it wasnt. With the new design i have to constantly tweak it in inspector to be readable.

kerpotgh 4y ago

Out of those redesigns, the worst was Reddit and I still use the old version. It’s so much more info dense, much less forced engagement, easier to look at and browse etc.

dooglius 4y ago

If the cost of adjusting to the new thing is greater than the "objective" benefit it provides, then it is better not to change.

outsidetheparty 4y ago
I don't agree, on a couple of different axes. If we take as given, for the sake of argument, that the new thing is objectively better than the old thing, never changing means never getting those benefits. Stagnate permanently, rather than pay the temporary price of adjusting to change? Also, userbases are not static. New users would don't need to pay the "cost" of adjusting, because they have nothing to adjust from; and if the new thing is objectively better than the old design, then it will attract more new users than the inferior old thing. (Note I am not trying to make the case that the new wikipedia design is objectively better or worse than the previous one; that's an argument nobody will win.)
babypuncher 4y ago
The cost of adjusting is a one time expense, whereas the objective benefits offered by a good redesign continue to provide new value for as long as the new design is in use. I see your argument as one against frequent redesigns, not one against redesigns in general. If you change up your UI every 12 months, even if each iteration is technically better, you are causing problems for your users. Wikipedia's last redesign happened 12 years ago.

yjftsjthsd-h 4y ago

Okay, but sometimes the new one is objectively worse; Reddit's new design massively reduced information density and was also the deployment point for a lot of user-hostile behaviors.

Kiro 4y ago
That's still subjective, even if it's shared by many. I prefer new reddit.
- yjftsjthsd-h 4y ago
  Okay, then everything is subjective and the new design can't claim to be superior (since it's only subjective) and we're left with the cost of switching to a new design for no good reason.
- Firmwarrior 4y ago
  Is there a thing about the new Reddit that's good? (Other than it being good for the shareholders that it aggressively it pushes people into their crummy popup- and tracking-infested app)
yamtaddle 4y ago
Having to click to see all the posts on a page that's heavier and slower than the original ought to be regarded as an outright error. If you're going to show less stuff, it should at least be faster.

coder543 4y ago

The problem with the Reddit redesign has nothing to do with missing features or capabilities. Even on an insanely powerful computer with a gigabit fiber optic connection, it is unbelievably slow compared to the old one. It also implements a bunch of antipatterns like "view more comments" and relentless prompts to switch to their mobile app. I also can't remember a single actual improvement that "New Reddit" has received in the years since it launched. "Unfamiliar" is not the problem there. We've had "New Reddit" for years and it is still confusingly bad.

outsidetheparty 4y ago
Fair enough, based on this and sibling comments, Reddit was a poor example for me to have chosen. I didn't start using that site until after the redesign, and am not a heavy user now -- possibly I was misinformed, but I had the impression that the "new" design was launched with a lot missing and took a while to get back to feature parity. Personally for aesthetics and usability I greatly prefer the new design -- the old one looks unreadably cramped to me --but the one test I was able to run before they throttled me as a suspected bot showed the new design weighing about nine times as many kb as the old for a given page. That's objectively not good.
jesprenj 4y ago
You can still use old reddit versions: http://old.reddit.com http://old.reddit.com. http://old.reddit.com./.compact http://old.reddit.com./.compact
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- waterhouse 4y ago
  Also, you can use the Redirector extension (as exhibited in the article) to match any Reddit URLs and redirect you to the old.reddit.com version. I do this.

babypuncher 4y ago

This is a tale as old as software itself. Some of the hyperbole in yesterday's thread decrying the redesign was laughable.

paganel 4y ago

I'm still only using old.reddit and i.reddit.com years after their re-design. The moment they get rid of those I'll probably stop using reddit completely.

pier25 4y ago

I love the new Wikipedia but the Reddit redesign is an attrocity. I still use the old site with RES.

VancouverMan 4y ago

> The new design was better, it just took some getting used to. I often don't find that to be the case. While I don't use it much these days, any time I do end up on Reddit with its newer design, I find it painful to even just read the content there. I've tried to give the new design a chance, but the user experience is just so atrocious. To use that site, I have to switch the "www" in the URL to "old" to get the earlier design that's at least mostly usable. That isn't the only example of "improvements" leaving me worse off. It happened with Slashdot, with Firefox's UI, with GNOME 3 (and later), with Windows 8 (and later), and with pgAdmin 4, among numerous other pieces of software that I use. About a month ago, I booted up an old laptop running Windows 2000 and an ancient version of Firefox. It's been many years since I'd used them, but I was shocked at how pleasant the experience was. It made their current user interface and user experience regressions far more blatant. Unfortunately, based on what I've seen of it so far, Wikipedia will likely be added to that list of mine, too.

armchairhacker 4y ago

Wikipedia is an example of good website redesign: overall I think the new site is better and has some added benefits (TOC sidebar, fixed-width page layout) and doesn’t unnecessarily change or remove things. But Wikipedia also allows people to resort to the old style. Which I think is even better because it satisfies those who simply dislike change no matter what. And it also helps in case the new redesign is not so good… Overall I think customizability is the best, but it’s also the hardest because you must now support multiple styles and layouts instead of one. For a simple site like Wikipedia it is reasonable though

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

pessimizer 4y ago

> But just as often it feels like users just dislike change. The new thing feels wrong because it's unfamiliar, not because it's objectively worse. Avoiding change is an entirely valid concern, which you also share. I say this assuming that you would be upset if I moved your steering wheel to the opposite side of your car overnight, or switched your gas and brake pedals. Being not "objectively worse" is not nearly enough. A change, at the very least, has to be a significant improvement to make up for retraining time/effort.

outsidetheparty 4y ago
I wasn't trying to suggest that "not objectively worse" was the baseline, of course! What I was trying to express was that in many cases, it seems that users interpret a new design as worse simply because it's different and unfamiliar, rather than based on its objective merits.

andrewmutz 4y ago

> It feels like every redesign of every major website I've ever seen has been accompanied by an outcry from users who hate the changes -- Reddit, Facebook, Stack Overflow, now Wikipedia... This isn't because most people don't like the changes, it's because outrage and anger go viral. Whether its about tech or about politics, no one engages with content about people who are happy. They engage with content that demonstrates anger or controversy. One day we will build some media products that aren't supported by advertising, and we'll start to optimize products for something other than "number of eyeballs". At that point we will see content that actually informs the reader. Until then, get used to every molehill being portrayed as a mountain.

outsidetheparty 4y ago
> This isn't because most people don't like the changes, it's because outrage and anger go viral That is a very good point I hadn't considered at all! How many people are going to be motivated to go online and rant about how much they love the new ${foo}? They're mostly just going to quietly go use ${foo} some more.

noodleman 4y ago

I think the Reddit redesign deserves criticism. The redesign did nothing to improve or unify the UX between desktop and mobile while introducing a bunch of obnoxious dark patterns. But Wikipedia is better for it's redesign. I think change is just difficult for some to accept.

wruza 4y ago

The Stack Overflow redesign a couple years back drew so much outrage at the time! I hated it too! But now that we're all used to it, if you go back in the archives and look at the previous design... it was worse. The new design was better, it just took some getting used to. Let me suggest another hypothesis: both designs are equivalent^ and you just hated the feeling of unfamiliarity twice. That feeling passes with time like everything does. Users don’t like change, that’s the correct part. New is better - that part may be incorrect by exactly the same argument. Users don’t like change-back too, and you are a user. Btw, the first thing I’ve added to stylebot on SO was a bigger width for the content column, so that most of regular code snippets wouldn’t have an h-scroll. Btw2, I almost screwed up my comment twice because someone decided to redesign the text selection popup menu on latest ios 16.x. They now AI/ML/whatever cut-copy-paste button positions, so my muscle memory hits the wrong one constantly. Thankfully, HN rules don’t allow me to explain what I think of this “new design”. With years I understood one thing: you won’t be heard and the only reasonable action to take is to ignore. I believe 90% of users do just that - say f it and ignore, because the alternative is to shout into the void. ^ ignoring new functionality (if any) which could have been added without redesigning.

outsidetheparty 4y ago
> Let me suggest another hypothesis: both designs are equivalent^ and you just hated the feeling of unfamiliarity twice Nah. I've been talked out of the Reddit one, but this one I'll stand by; the old design SO still feels familiar, but the typography was crap.
- hexo 4y ago
  No it wasnt. With the new design i have to constantly tweak it in inspector to be readable.