
UI redesigns are mostly a waste of time - bobblywobbles
https://debugandrelease.blogspot.com/2019/03/ui-redesigns-are-mostly-waste-of-time.html
======
calinet6
> 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.

~~~
inertiatic
>People aren't idiots. They don't do this work for no reason.

Citation absolutely needed. In my experience people are frequently idiots, and
work gets done for no reason after someone with authority is convinced that
it's a good idea by someone aching to do that sort of work.

If it happens in so many other cases, it does happen in UI/UX as well.

~~~
calinet6
I'll concede "most people are of average idiocy" and cite core principles of
statistics and the meanings of average and most.

But yes, you're right, happens all the time. Less so with most of the large
scale more popular redesigns people tend to think of when writing articles
like this about tools they actually use; the team at Atlassian, for example,
is not made of idiots, neither at Slack, Google, Twitter, or other large
companies with mostly significant design experience.

Smaller operations where we all likely work—yep, hit or miss.

~~~
camhart
I and almost everyone from my team loathes the new jira released a year+ ago.
The menu drives me nuts still and makes no sense.

It's my understanding the use of the word "idiot" in this context implies
someone who is primarily responsible for a significant amount of rework on
anything that bears no real fruit, ui redesigns being one potential example.
Pretty sure big companies make those mistakes just as much as small. Though I
don't think its fair to call someone an idiot for this reason--I think its
very challenging to do well.

~~~
groestl
An idiot, in the original sense of the word, is someone who focuses on
themselves, showing no interest in the common cause/politics. It's a bit
heavy, but reapplied here it could mean someone who focuses completely on
visual quality, while not putting their time into other important aspects of
the product (almost all of which are more important that visual quality, at
least according to OP).

~~~
atoav
This is how I would describe the noun of _idiotic design_ if it existed.

~~~
marcosdumay
Well, if it didn't exist before, you just created it.

------
userbinator
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."

~~~
atoav
Many creative professionals (that includes programmers) will go and do the
thing they like instead of doing the thing that is needed. For architects that
could be a ron of glass and open spaces while the people who use this space
would rather have a space with lots of cosy private corners and spots, for
programmers it is insisting on certain frameworks, languages or patterns
despite hurting the project. For sounddesigners it is usign to most ober the
top emotional sonic sledgehammer they find. For designers it can be
worshipping the latest style, wrongly understood minimalism etc.

All of these things usually mean the person at hand might be able to produce
_something_ , but they are essentially the wrong person for the wrong job.

And let’s face it: these kind of redesigns are often something the new CEO
wants to sbow to everybody how much change he embodies. The designer is
underpaid and unfamilsr with the product, the project not well organized and
the deadline soon.

Any designer worth their money should be able to redesign a UI while improving
it. Understanding the value of what is already there and how it maps to user
tasks, daily routines and understanding the relevant assumptions, is the main
part of the job.

So whst you describe is not good design it is bad design or design that never
got the chance to be good.

~~~
mjburgess
On the flip side, you could see a person selling their labour as having some
right/stake in doing something which interests them.

These outcomes are then compromises which give something to the producer, as
well as to the customer.

~~~
atoav
I completely agree. This is exactly why I said, if this happens you didn’t
choose the right person for the job.

The same person who butchers your UI might be very good for creating print
designs that above all need to sell the company CI.

For critical redesigns you need a designer who is mostly about analyzing and
rethinking the user experience behind it. Better even, split it in two: one
entity should only do the analytical part and guide the direction, the other
should implement it with a little bit of wiggle room. Make sure there is some
overlap between the two

~~~
QualityReboot
I think I agree with you, but how are you supposed to assess designers to
choose the right person?

The main difference I've found between bad/good designers is flexibility and
willingness to ask for help. There's typically a lot of organizational
knowledge about where pain points are. If a designer addresses those, then
people are generally happy.

Maybe splitting the job is a good idea, but it seems like you shouldn't need a
split if the designer is listening to the whole team.

Also, sometimes the designer is fine, but they've been explicitly told by
management what to do, so no designer would have been able to fill the
position and do a good job. Even on my failed projects, I really couldn't tell
you if it was the management or the designer that caused the resulting design
issues.

------
hombre_fatal
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
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.

------
jslabovitz
> 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.

~~~
taeric
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/

~~~
jslabovitz
I have an iPhone, so Apple Maps is right there as an alternative (and better,
since it's more integrated into things like the Contacts app and auto-
recognized addresses). I find its design to be much calmer and smoother, which
makes me happier. And it doesn't keep asking me to login to the Googleverse...

There are many reasons I don't use Facebook, most of which are enumerated in
countless HN posts, but a big reason is that I get totally frustrated with the
interface. I don't know how to say this strongly enough, but the UI literally
disgusts me, to the point where I just give up and close it down. True!

Maybe I'm weird this way. But I've been computing since about 1976, and using
the web since '93, and I've got no patience anymore for crappy sites/apps.

~~~
hopler
With all respect, people over age 50 are not the target demographic for
general purpose mass market products. Even simple things like supporting large
fonts or color contrast for weaker eyes is beyond the capability of tech
giants (in large part because of the tyranny of pixel perfect UI designers
over simple auto-flow/layout algorithms

~~~
jslabovitz
No disrespect taken. Thanks for raising this point — one that I’m often
frustrated by. (Yes, I’m over 50.) I’ve resorted to using Safari’s Reader mode
on the vast majority of the sites I visit because the respective designer’s
idea of type face, size, and contrast is so unreadable to me. Obviously this
doesn’t work for interactive sites like maps, though.

------
preommr
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.

~~~
hbosch
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.

------
cortic
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.

------
geuszb
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.

------
alexandercrohde
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
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
> 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.

------
rahulchhabra07
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
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.

------
austincheney
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
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
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
They specifically mention repositioning the logout button to make it more
accessible. That sounds like a micro-optimization.

------
nartz
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.

------
mnm1
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
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
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
I did imply not everything could be fixed by CSS, but it is very useful for
adjusting font sizes, spacing, and colours to something more sane.

~~~
mnm1
None of those things are actual UX problems.

------
yoz-y
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
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
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.

------
mattnewport
> 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.

------
xtiansimon
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
Do you think they prioritized the newest users/prospects versus power users?

~~~
xtiansimon
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.

~~~
tln
I wasn't trying to excuse their choices, but learn a bit about this case.

> If there's a difference among users, it's found when you live in a transit-
> rich community, like I do in NYC Metro

Thanks, this is the context I was interested in.

------
Aegaeus10111
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.

------
underwater
> ... 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
Those three choices are interesting because I would absolutely take the
designs of those sites from 10 years ago over the current ones.

~~~
ddoolin
Google Maps I can't agree with you on...but Gmail and Facebook, certainly.

~~~
underwater
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%3AANd9GcSNUb...](https://encrypted-
tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn%3AANd9GcSNUbSjo1hpdamQyyNjENMEUY1Au8y7yZe5D4v9HNG-8XI9Mk3L)

~~~
asark
... 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_.

------
sgdesign
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…

------
Quequau
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.

------
djohnston
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
I try not to stir trouble and be honest as I write :)

------
taeric
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.

------
dhbradshaw
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
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.

------
jordache
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.

~~~
bsdubernerd
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).

------
masswerk
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
> _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.

------
oftenwrong
Redesigns usually improve the "wow"-factor - great for sales demos. They are
often detrimental to actual use of N hours per week.

------
ilovecaching
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
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.

------
yason
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.

------
Ozzie_osman
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.

------
superkuh
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.

------
ojr
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

------
jimnotgym
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
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.

------
ng12
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.

------
ivanhoe
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
I'm in favor of UX upgrades as you say, but not total redesigns. Incremental
improvements are best in my opinion.

------
Aegaeus10111
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/)

------
buboard
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 .

------
vipulved
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
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.

------
akras14
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/)

------
tuxracer
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
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.

------
mvkel
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).

------
capex
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.

------
DaOne256
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.

------
devbranch
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.

------
codingdave
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.

------
txt
+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!

------
franzwong
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.

------
rossdavidh
Well, look at all of the UI redesigns on HN, and that site is good! Oh,
wait...

------
omosubi
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
I did not like how I had to re-learn where everything was! :(

Your brain is more nimble than mine, cheers to you! :)

------
soobrosa
99% of the time, yes, except when no. [http://tonsky.me/blog/github-
redesign/](http://tonsky.me/blog/github-redesign/)

------
nojvek
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.

------
cyborpunc
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.

------
paulsutter
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)

------
bigbadgoose
The new Google Calendar is pretty sweet though, especially the day view when
you have multiple calendars displayed

------
jrochkind1
something has changed with the HN ranking algorithm lately, no? this is not an
interesting article.

~~~
intrasight
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.

------
alexandernst
I backend guy talking about frontend.

~~~
bobblywobbles
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.

------
dbg31415
What are you basing your assertion off of?

Because I've got mountains of A/B tests that validate the UX improvements.

------
tw1010
Gotta increase GDP somehow.

------
SllX
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.

------
wamsachel
THANK YOU

#sent from my vim

------
Haga
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.

------
paultopia
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
All I will say is I like their current reboot of office365 Outlook webmail

------
ramijames
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)

