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In general, "everyone" always hates every re-design. Yet we collectively think that stuff looks better than it does 20 years ago. (You don't have to tell me i

In general, "everyone" always hates every re-design. Yet we collectively think that stuff looks better than it does 20 years ago. (You don't have to tell me if you personally liked it better, you're an outlier)

gravescale 2y ago
The problem isn't the redesign as such. The problem usually is a redesign is top cover for hostile features. Reddit is a perfect example where the new design is crawling with dark patterns, popups, nags, more "integrated" (i.e. camouflaged) ads and so on. To enable all that crapware there's a ton of JS and then you need a massive framework thing, and everything is asynchronous now so load all the content with a billion API calls to make everything lag, and then because now you can, you plug in analytics to everything. If it was just about some rounded corners and it works on mobile now (like old Reddit doesn't) only the real NIMBYs would care.
seoulmetro 2y ago
We don't collectively think things look better than they did 20 years ago... That's impossible to ascertain as a statistic. Nothing has stayed the same. And if it had, then people don't know what the "worse" or "better" is. And things that change are rarely changed purely cosmetically.
edflsafoiewq 2y ago
There are two kinds of people: those who think "everyone hates every redesign, so we shouldn't do one", and those who think "everyone hates every redesign, so we can ignore how much everyone hates ours".
bakugo 2y ago
>Yet we collectively think that stuff looks better than it does 20 years ago. This is completely meaningless. Most people don't actually know what they prefer and just default to "new good, old bad" when asked.
f33d5173 2y ago
>You don't have to tell me if you personally liked it better, you're an outlier If I don't have any data to the contrary, then I'll extrapolate from my sample size of one. In fact I do have more data, in the form of regularly seeing others say they prefer a variety of older UIs. Granted that everyone hates every redesign, and we can fairly assume that much of this is simple familiarity. But that doesn't mean that every single redesign is an improvement either.
bscphil 2y ago
Even if you're right that everyone prefers interfaces "now" to stuff 20 years ago, that doesn't necessarily mean that it's because people are wrongly biased against new redesigns. New designs have problems and bugs that are ironed out over a period of several years, wherein a new redesign doesn't occur. Most of the problems people have with redesigns are these problems, or sometimes outright mistakes that get reverted. That's why repeated redesigns, rather than getting it right followed by stability, is such a problem. You lose all the work you did in ironing out problems with a specific version of an interface. I'm not sure how true your pronouncement about "people in general" is, either. Sure, most people don't look at Firefox from 20 years ago and say "yeah, we should go back to that". I'm an outlier for thinking that. But in part that's because going back to that would itself be another redesign, and Mozilla (for example) is famous for fouling them up. No one trusts them to do a redesign, and no one wants to have to relearn an interface, even if they might be convinced it's superior in some way.
7jjjjjjj 2y ago
No we don't. I still want this design back: https://web.archive.org/web/20171130235040/https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ZfuNTqbHE8 https://web.archive.org/web/20171130235040/https://www.youtu...
mrgoldenbrown 2y ago
Do you have a source that says people actually prefer modern design rather than tolerate it? Like what percentage of people prefer Google's modern "ads blend in with search results" redesign compared to older Google designs where ads were visually distinct and clearly marked?

gravescale 2y ago

The problem isn't the redesign as such. The problem usually is a redesign is top cover for hostile features. Reddit is a perfect example where the new design is crawling with dark patterns, popups, nags, more "integrated" (i.e. camouflaged) ads and so on. To enable all that crapware there's a ton of JS and then you need a massive framework thing, and everything is asynchronous now so load all the content with a billion API calls to make everything lag, and then because now you can, you plug in analytics to everything. If it was just about some rounded corners and it works on mobile now (like old Reddit doesn't) only the real NIMBYs would care.

seoulmetro 2y ago

We don't collectively think things look better than they did 20 years ago... That's impossible to ascertain as a statistic. Nothing has stayed the same. And if it had, then people don't know what the "worse" or "better" is. And things that change are rarely changed purely cosmetically.

edflsafoiewq 2y ago

There are two kinds of people: those who think "everyone hates every redesign, so we shouldn't do one", and those who think "everyone hates every redesign, so we can ignore how much everyone hates ours".

bakugo 2y ago

>Yet we collectively think that stuff looks better than it does 20 years ago. This is completely meaningless. Most people don't actually know what they prefer and just default to "new good, old bad" when asked.

f33d5173 2y ago

>You don't have to tell me if you personally liked it better, you're an outlier If I don't have any data to the contrary, then I'll extrapolate from my sample size of one. In fact I do have more data, in the form of regularly seeing others say they prefer a variety of older UIs. Granted that everyone hates every redesign, and we can fairly assume that much of this is simple familiarity. But that doesn't mean that every single redesign is an improvement either.

bscphil 2y ago

Even if you're right that everyone prefers interfaces "now" to stuff 20 years ago, that doesn't necessarily mean that it's because people are wrongly biased against new redesigns. New designs have problems and bugs that are ironed out over a period of several years, wherein a new redesign doesn't occur. Most of the problems people have with redesigns are these problems, or sometimes outright mistakes that get reverted. That's why repeated redesigns, rather than getting it right followed by stability, is such a problem. You lose all the work you did in ironing out problems with a specific version of an interface. I'm not sure how true your pronouncement about "people in general" is, either. Sure, most people don't look at Firefox from 20 years ago and say "yeah, we should go back to that". I'm an outlier for thinking that. But in part that's because going back to that would itself be another redesign, and Mozilla (for example) is famous for fouling them up. No one trusts them to do a redesign, and no one wants to have to relearn an interface, even if they might be convinced it's superior in some way.

7jjjjjjj 2y ago

No we don't. I still want this design back: https://web.archive.org/web/20171130235040/https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ZfuNTqbHE8 https://web.archive.org/web/20171130235040/https://www.youtu...

mrgoldenbrown 2y ago

Do you have a source that says people actually prefer modern design rather than tolerate it? Like what percentage of people prefer Google's modern "ads blend in with search results" redesign compared to older Google designs where ads were visually distinct and clearly marked?