I don't see people in that thread being hostile - only honest. And honestly, that redesign is really bad. There's really nothing positive to say about it and although the old adage goes "don't say anything if you have nothing positive to say" I'm glad people here don't bide by it and provide useful critique instead.
On a side, I find it pretty sad that there's so much negativity in this thread. I know people are used to certain designs and don't like changes, but saying "I hate this" is very strong and I don't understand why anyone would have such strong feelings towards other person's blog post.
You're not just seeing anger about this redesign; you're seeing the cumulative hatred towards every single UI that was redesigned in this way.
Especially in today's atmosphere of excessive modesty it's far too easy to immerse yourself in a "cloud of positivity" and completely ignore everyone saying DO NOT WANT. The real danger here is someone at GitHub with that attitude may actually do it. People expressing strong negative opinions are doing so for a good reason, perhaps you should listen...
I think there's a difference (moreover, a percievable difference) between a UI redesign which users hate and a UI redesign which users merely complain about. People love complaining and will happily point out the rough edges of anything put in their eyeline, but that's not the same thing as disliking it in a vacuum.
This thread is the perfect example of why you should mostly ignore internet “outrage”. Some people disappointed because they liked the new (previous) design. Others bemoaning aspects of the new (beta 3) design. Others who have never used either bitching based on a couple of screenshots. You can’t please…anyone.
I think, given the diversity of opinions in the responses to your post, you might want to rethink some of this. I certainly said no such thing. Some redesigns are "good", and some redesigns are "bad". But that decision is personal and subjective. You can't change a UI without annoying someone somewhere. And any UI that lots of people use regularly (gmail, Office and desktops are all great example) is going to have a metric ton of loud complainers every time they change.
And that applies whether or not the change has merit. It's inherent in the process. So any analysis of a UI that starts with an "I HATE THE CHANGES!" blog post is flawed and (in the scientific sense) biased. Show some testing, write your own rant, or just sit tight.
I still distinctly remember the survey they had post new reddit launch. After answering it as accurately as I could given the rather limited options available and submitting it I was given a response of 'sorry you're so change averse, suck it up'. Obviously paraphrasing, but the idea that someone could only dislike the new UX because they were change averse has stuck with me as being particularly brain dead.
It appears that the hostility stems from a deep misunderstanding of football, the current UX and why it evolved the way it has.
You can hardly blame the community for reacting harshly when presented with a product they never asked for claiming that their current experience is somehow broken when it is not.
I don't think they're being hostile, I think they're providing features they think people want.
Personally I hate this kind of feature and try to actively avoid products which have it, however I feel I am in a minority of general consumers in that feeling.
It's a self-serving simplification to make that criticism. There are lots of ways for a team to assess if users want to switch back to an old look beyond simply counting how many find that setting. In-house usability testing, user panels, customer feedback, etc. And they're all more objective than a forum thread.
Any product with millions of heavy users is going to have a subset that are upset by any change, no matter how positive it is. And if you make no changes, people complain that the product isn't being updated.
It's easy to be snarky and whiny. Sometimes it's hard to remember that not everyone may see the world the way you do.
Or they can just tell them facts instead of pretending to care what a random hater thinks. Just like they did. They also asked what bad UX they referred to, so they did what you wanted but it was still disrespectful apparently. If genuine feedback was met with "go fuck yourself" we could maybe call it user hostility but this was not.
Have you considered this is due to the overarching change in the startup society as a whole? I mean, have you HAD an actual conversation with other startup founders/CEOs/early employees lately? :) Either they have nothing to say (because they're so new to the scene and probably have an IQ of around 100), or they are ubercritical (because they've seen SO many microcompanies come and go and they're still around - so everyone wants their advice).
Don't take it personally - their meaning isn't what's changed, it's their wording. Saying "I hate your UI" is essentially the same as saying, "Your UI needs to be cleaner." Look at extremely negative comments as a way to start an excellent conversation:
Them: "I hate your UI."
You: "I know! I wish it was cleaner. What do you think about this toolbar?"
If someone is willing to give you honest "I hate" or "I love" feedback, they're ASKING you to want their opinion. And it sounds like you do - so ask them something in return.
Again, I'm not saying that being rude or inconsiderate is ever justified. However, when trying to look at a response from a psychological point of view, you kind of have to throw out notions about what is right and wrong as these tend to taint the data. The fact that people felt like they had to keep commenting and commenting saying the same thing over and over should tell us something.
When the original beta was introduced it was not a "hey guys, what do you think of the new UI" type of announcement. It was more of a "this is the new UI, it adheres to the latest and greatest design trends, is better, prettier, more 'energetic'; you will love it!" People felt patronized so they gave their feedback in droves.
This later set the tone that the only way they're going to listen is if we bury them in feedback. Of course this is unfortunate as good feedback was probably lost in the noise.
Yeah, that's becoming quite usual. Change one thing and you have self entitled UI experts all other the place to explain that it's awful because their personal taste doesn't allow for change.
But apparently it works. After all, I clicked the link and I'm here commenting.
I don't doubt that every change will have some detractors—but that isn't a reason to shout down all complaints. "It's just a vocal minority—most users like it!" Well, maybe that's true, and maybe it isn't—we'll never know, because this isn't the sort of thing you can measure with analytics. All you can do is listen to feedback.
Right now, my comment is sitting at the top of this HN thread, even though we're several updates out from when the design change was first introduced. There's similar outcry over on Reddit. I think it's safe to extrapolate that a significant enough number of people dislike the expanding bar to at least warrant a hidden config flag.
The next step that also seems to happen more often than not: Despite user outcry, the company digs in, becomes defensive, and dismisses complaints with platitudes or snark like “you’ll get over it”. See also: Slashdot redesign, Fark redesign, Reddit redesign, Digg redesign, and so on.
I actually agree with what you've written, but I downvoted you because I hate reading comments that say things like "I will probably get some downvotes". If you think you're going to be downvoted, ask yourself why and consider rewriting it in such a way that people won't downvote you.
For example, in your comment here, to make it less downvotable you could say:
* What do you like about the redesign? There must be something positive you can say, even if it's just "it definitely looks more visually appealing" or "I understand that you were trying to improve usability by putting more information on the same side".
* Do you have any evidence that supports your counter-argument? If not, you're just two people with opinions, and since you're not a well-known authority on usability it's just noise.
* What would you suggest doing to fix the problems you've said here while also fixing the problems that the OP identified? Or do you not agree that those problems are really problems?
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