The thing that I'm still confused about is why they offered users the ability to "Request an icon", when really, users would be suggesting an icon. As a user, I expect "requests" to be answered. That is, I expect a special service, just for me, that I'll probably have to pay for unless the site is 100% free.
Under that model of user expectations, I envision two groups of users: 1. the users who want to casually suggest an icon (and don't need it for anything critical or want to pay for it themselves, but who would happily use it if it became freely available) 2. the users who have a special request and would pay to have it done, regardless of how many other users want it.
Group number 1 won't bother clicking on "Request an icon", because they figure that the button is for members of group number 2. Group number 1 won't see an option for them, which changes site perceptions, because group number 1 has an impression that the site is for paid requests.
Group number 2 will click on "Request an icon", hoping to place an order, but will be disappointed and/or confused by what they see. Members of group number 2 might note that "Oh hey, it'd be nice if I could get this for free". But given that their need was sufficiently critical for them to want to pay commission, the option to submit an idea that may or may not be voted into existence at some unknown time won't seem promising enough for them to invest any more time in the matter.
You nailed the piece of information I didn't even understand from the article at first. The feature is to suggest an icon, not request one. Requesting an icon sounds like custom work ("I'll pay for this"), whereas suggesting one is clearly "here's an idea for you".
That one word choice would have made a great deal of difference to me as a user understanding the feature. Yes there are glaring design issues with where they went as well. But that one choice of word is huge.
How about "petition for an icon"? I find 'suggest' goes too far the other direction, it's discouraging because it means nothing. But here, if I can get a few votes from other users, I do actually get it. That's a petition for me. Or maybe even 'start a referendum', but I don't know how commonly known that word is.
Just as a counter-anecdote, I didn't read "request" that way at all. If you compare it to a site soliciting feedback, it wouldn't seem strange (to me) to "Request a feature". If some site's uservoice or getsatisfaction or whatever had that heading, especially with votes beside each feature, I certainly wouldn't expect every request to be granted.
Just glancing at the design I can see that the whitespace is all messed up. The previous design was more compact, one could easily view most or all of the necessary information in a smaller space. But that is just glancing at it. The newer design seems to be following the newer web motif of flat design, generous space, etc.
Back in the 2007-2010 era of websites, somebody mentioned that "ugly" websites work. Not that fancy or flat design is bad. But the sheer simplicity of ugly websites forces people to focus on the content, context and functionality. The ugly websites pointed out were MySpace and Craigslist mainly, but you could probably add a few others like Drudge Report and Plenty of Fish. Even Hacker News is pretty "ugly" but it obviously works great.
There is an ongoing trend of equating "simplicity/removing distractions" with "hiding or removing information/making it less useful".
Make something as simple as it needs to be, but no simpler. Most designers I see these days seem to forget that last bit.
In this specific example the whole purpose of the request system is to vote and secondarily get other people to vote with you. The new design eliminated almost everything that made the old one useful. It isn't simpler, it's simplistic.
Make something as simple as it needs to be, but no simpler. Most designers I see these days seem to forget that last bit.
People are copying the pointless "elegant simplicity" signalling of the new Apple Macbook. I think this is probably one of the best filters you can find, if you are perceptive enough to be able to use it: See whether or not someone prioritizes signalling over actual functionality/semantic content/logic. Observe how often this happens. Compare the effort that goes into signalling versus more substantive observation and analysis.
If someone isn't self aware of their signalling, and hasn't differentiated that concept from actual value/competence, quietly disengage.
The wasted space thing drives me crazy. I tried the new beta for Evernote and it was mostly empty space that the text can't be in. Please, let me have some interface "distracton" please.
My reaction was Nope, roll back to the previous version.
I may be wrong, but I think that this site's UI is far from simple. It looks clean, but that's different thing.
The new interface feels very unconventional, in fact. It may become convenient once you've learned what everything means, but until then you'd feel puzzled.
~~ Of course, I could not try to work with the old site, but the old screenshots looked more informative than the new ones. Not surprised at all by the results.
The questions you should ask when designing a website:
What am I trying to communicate?
Can someone easily get that information from my site?
If there is interaction - is it easy for the user to figure out what to do?
The questions that actually get asked when designing a website:
Does it feel modern?
Am I using the latest technologies?
Would I feel comfortable telling my buddies how I created the site?
I have nothing against modernizing a site, other than the fact that it's not that important, and it's really easy to screw it up.
Back in the 2007-2010 era of websites, somebody mentioned that "ugly" websites work.
One obvious example being Amazon.
As a consumer I will generally go with whoever gives me the most information about whatever I'm doing/learning/buying with the least clicking around. Indulging in the modern "design" trend of giving me 5 million white pixels is not how you sell stuff to me. I'm not looking to buy white pixels, I'm all stocked up on those.
That surprises me, since when I visit Amazon's UK homepage my fan kicks-in and there's a noticable delay before I can start typing-in the product for which I want to search; all so that they can load an enormous Prime promotion carousel and rows upon rows of 'product suggestions' in which I have never shown any interest. Today it includes pearl ear-rings.
Back in the 2007-2010 era of websites, somebody mentioned that "ugly" websites work.
Yes, and they were wrong for any meaningful sample of websites. You can point to ugly yet hugely successful websites but that ignores the millions of ugly, failed websites that have long since stopped serving visitors. And equally, there are examples of beautiful sites that work and beautiful sites that didn't.
How good a website looks has a short term impact on how it's perceived, but great content (where "content" has a lot of different meanings) is always more important. That's true regardless of how much effort you spend on design.
To me this is more about the fact that incremental changes are better than a complete redesign. The previous design had its flaws but people were used to it.
No it's not, it didn't get popular until it was redesigned. It's proof that sites can be too ugly, but that sites don't have to be particularly pretty.
What redesign are you referring to? Reddit has never changed much in its design. I'm looking at it in the Wayback Machine from before subreddits were introduced, and it still looks like the same site.
I was literally just thinking that reddit's staff are either all back-end engineers or don't do anything at all. reddit has barely changed at all in the past several years. The design has barely changed. They finally just recently put out a mobile app. Little to no improvement has been made in moderator tools. Where is this redesign you seem to be seeing?
There are actually a few etymologies for the term in architecture. It does often imply a deliberate crudeness and a harshness, supposedly an honest response to the character of the materials. To the untrained eye this is close enough to "ugly" that most people don't distinguish. There's also a very strong argument that brutalism represents a turn away from the values of western humanism (typically expressed, historically, in classical architecture) toward a vulgar, bleak conception of modernity. Another aspect is that it tends to be "sublime" rather than "beautiful", which, again, translates to negative vibes for many people.
It's not a term that I'm happy to see being applied now to some essentially cosmetic aspects of web design.
I always find this "language evolves"-argument a bit strange. Maybe I am reactionary, but it is "though" not "tho". More people using it wrong, does not make it right to me. In some cases I will eventually adapt, but not when it is about concept that was invented, explained and named by a person with sources you can cite to prove it.
Unfortunately, language is a social construct and relies entirely on popular consensus of words. Words like "literally" and "inflammable" have grown to take on their opposite meanings. One could argue that "though" is an inefficient way to spell that word and too easily confused with the spelling of "thought".
I share a similar peeve as you with the use of "women" as an adjective. All through grade school and high school, the use of "women" as a noun was pummeled into my head. Now, I routinely see presumably college-educated journalists use it as an adjective ("women scientists", "women engineers", etc.)
That language is a social construct does not imply that everyone must automatically accept any usage someone else proposes as equally valid as any other. Individual people, as well as groups, are free to reject any drift or change in meaning as they see fit.
Indeed, this is by far the usual case. People collectively can, and do, reject almost all proposed novel usages, which are quickly forgotten. We just remember the few cases where things change due to survivorship bias.
What does "accept" mean here, is it a matter of refusing to understand what someone is trying to communicate until they use the lexical conventions you prefer? Words have meaning whether you "accept" them or not.
"People" aren't really a useful measure here because there is slang that achieves popularity out of the subculture that produces it, subcultures composed of people, just the same as it may not propagate, in which case it naturally remains useful to the in-group. To reject slang as valid language until it achieves mainstream acceptance is a) not measurable as there is no line that is crossed, and b) antisocial.
I can't see how to define "accept" except as the opposite of rejection. You can understand what someone is trying to say, but then mock them for saying it "stupidly". You can also just refuse to repeat it. If you accept someone's usage, you probably do neither of these (you might make fun of someone for the heck of it, or not get a chance to use the new term, but you get the idea). Social dynamics, basically. And yes, this metric might produce different answers at different cultural strata.
If you understand what they're saying, you've already "accepted" the meaning/spelling/usage/etc. Turning around and mocking people or refusing to use the term is a separate issue that doesn't necessarily reflect well on that person.
We already have a word for that, though. It's "understand". And while I see what you mean about mockery, refusing to use a term/idiom is everyone's prerogative. I, and probably you as well, simply don't use certain widely accepted phrases because I think they're dumb.
Anyway, I came up with a better definition: accepting a word/usage is believing that it's a good way to express whatever it was.
It means you do not promulgate the usage. I understand perfectly well that some people who say "literally" actually mean "very," even though I do not accept this semantic change in "literally."
I myself will never use "literally" to mean "very," which differentially lowers the chance of this new meaning becoming standardized. Over time, either most people will do the same and the proposed novel usage of "literally" to mean "very" will die out, or else most people will collectively adopt the new meaning.
Empirically, almost all novel usages die out very quickly and are forgotten. Read some slang from the 1920s -- it's already almost incomprehensible to a modern reader.
You are right, but as I described "Brutalism" is a scientific term, not a social construct. There was an inventor, there are sources. The meaning inside its scope is well-defined.
If you would now go ahead and use it to describe a concept of a different scope where it does not apply at all, say web designs, you could do that, but you would expose that you just tried to name something in a sciency way to sound sophisticated without having any idea what the term actually means.
I think there's probably an imaginable application of Brutalism to web design, but I'm not sure it would add much to the discourse. I would absolutely read it as entertainment, though.
As for the term itself, there's always a risk of imprecision when laypeople discuss the concepts used in certified professions.
A side effect of brutalist architecture though is some pretty ugly buildings. And it is a principle of brutalism to forego the aesthetic refinements and ornamentation common to other styles - this can be observed in the websites being called brutalist as well.
Looking at the 'before' and 'after' designs, I'd say that the biggest difference is that in the old design the first question you ask (via a textbox) is one to which the user already knows the answer ('what icon do you want?'). Whereas in the new design the first question is 'please pick one of these three options (with which you are not already familiar)'. So the questions requires the user to think. See Dont Make Me Think :) IANAUXD, just my $0.03
I would tend to agree. It runs afoul of the UX maxim "If you can't decide what you want your user to do, they can certainly not decide what to do." If you really want them to pick "custom" or "fast-track" or whatever (for which there is no coherent explanation visible in the mock I saw... fast-track? What does that even mean?), bring it up after they've committed in spirit to doing the thing you want them to do (request an icon).
I looked at the "after" design and no idea where to even begin. There is a "Request Icon" button, but I don't want to request one. I just want to search. Where do I do that?
Even going into the new design with an understanding of what it was trying to achieve, the tab title "Free for share" threw me off. It was so jarring that I completely stopped reading the article and started trying to grok the UI.
Am I required to 'share' my icon in order for it to be made, like on of those "Like on Facebook for coupon!" sites? Where can I share it? Can anyone vote for my icon, or only people who see it from my 'share'?
I would suggest that simply "Free" would be a much clearer, with the social/share component available but not required. Then, if they want more people to vote on their icon, they can choose to share it or not.
"Free for share" makes it sound transactional, like I'm paying for the icon with a 'share', which is a concept I absolutely hate.
And, on top of that, the new options make you think that you're the alternative. Instead of saying "hey, great, I can get a free icon!" you only notice that you could also get a fast-track or custom (whatever those mean), and you can't help but think "free for share" is the lowest priority thing.
Also, that entire page was impossible to parse. I had to go to their main webpage to even try to understand the concept of what they're doing ,and try to put the page snippets in context. Page snippets on a white background, placed over another white background, are confusing as hell.
I see that, as usually happens, the politics of website redesigns have prevented the simple, user-centric fix of "go back to the old site which worked fine." Like any other deployment, redesigns should have a rollback plan. If you installed a major system update and suddenly production throughput drops in half, you'd roll back to the old version. If you deploy a new design and your traffic falls in half.. why is there so much resistance to just rolling back to the old version?
I understand in cases where it's a big switchover and basically a redesign riding the coattails of a huge middleware/backend rewrite. I don't understand in a case like this when it wouldn't break major back office processes to just put the old site back.
Imagine for a second if this service was provided through another medium. Let's use radio for the sake of simplicity.
The old design was full of information. It was akin to a common radio station talk show. Few pauses. Lots of information flowing in at every moment. The new design is akin to a radio station talk show that takes a silent break every 5 seconds. The information isn't quite flowing anymore. People lose interest. They change the station. That's why they stopped commenting. They were expecting and needed a certain amount of information in order to use the service and join in the conversation.
The title of this post is clickbait. It should be titled something closer to "How we lost user interaction after our redesign".
They specifically mention that they did not lose any traffic/visitor numbers: "Important: our overall traffic didn’t change. The same amount of people came to this feature’s page."
It appears as though the "lost users" were really lost interactions with the vote button: "our voting numbers decreased by ~50%."
It's fascinating to me how far people are willing to go when skewing the information to pique interest. I'll bet a lot less people would read it without "lost users" in the title.
As a writer, I know quite much about clickbait name and use them extensively, true that.
However, in this particular case, the point is true: ~47% people stopped using the feature (user = someone, who uses). Meaning the conversion between people who found the feature and started using it has dropped by 47% as well.
So, if traffic numbers are EXACTLY the same (as noted) but less people click on a single button, you've "lost those users"? Doesn't make any sense to me. You've lost interaction with a button from your unchanged user base. Like you said yourself, click conversion from your users changed. Users changing interaction ≠ losing users
If you had lost 50% of your users, you would have half of the overall site traffic that you had last time.
Yes and no. I see what you are saying, but in my opinion every site can have its own definition of user and visitor. For some sites the terms may be interchangeable, while for other sites they have completely different meanings.
Let's take HN for example (I don't know if HN considers this their metric or what, just using it as an example.). Let's say they made a change that now requires everyone to login to the site each time they visit. So if you closed your browser window or were inactive for a period of time you would have to log back in. While you could still read posts and comments, you would be unable to submit new stories or comment until you logged in. While you are not logged in you would be considered a visitor. But when you log in, you now become a user.
While at first the traffic, or visitors, may remain the same, without participating users on the site the number of visitors will eventually drop as not as many people are submitting or commenting.
A site that does not require interaction, may on the other hand, simply use the two terms (visitor & user) interchangeably.
Seems to me by losing this argument I'll save 50% users for our feature. I hope you're right and those who stumbled on redesigned feature and left it, will one day return and finally know how to use it.
Going to apply fixes (or fight for them, in my case). And then publish the results. Thing is, we're still getting requests and designers have something to draw.
It's just me, who sees some drawbacks of this drop in the future. For others in my company, it may be just 20 votes reduction.
So the proper way to do big changes like this is to support both versions and to only roll out the change to select users. It's this radical new concept called A/B testing.
I'm quite supposed another possible cause to the drop in user votes is not mentioned in the blog that seems pretty obvious to me: Where are the vote buttons?
Even if I already fully understand their system and are highly motivated to vote, I wouldn't know how to actually do that in the new design.
In the new design, you have to hover over one of the numbers (without there being any indication that hovering does anything) - after which a grey up-arrow without any text appears. If you're familiar with reddit, etc and know that particular language of symbols, and also know this is a voting system, and you're not distracted by the gray color which could indicate "action not available", you can make an educated guess that this is likely the vote button.
In the old design, it was a button with the word "vote" on it.
Was there any sort of A/B testing done beforehand to see if the changes would bring actual improvement or was it more just trying to mimic current design trends?
The "original design" was the UserVoice support system, a fact conveniently missing from the article, which leaves us to speculating as to why they would have moved away from that platform in the first place...
The logic behind the redesign is not a mystery and was mentioned in the article. Here I can elaborate it:
1. To add several new features, UserVoice wasn't flexible enough to provide
2. To automate a few administrative tasks (tracking requests, updating, uploading) - thus no connect the system with our website backend more tightly
3. To cover all these changes in a modern, simplified version of the design.
Looks like you learned the hard way about hovering over to expose features. If you've got touch screen users those features will be virtually useless as well.
One thing that would have been cool to see your writeup would be how you used direct customer feedback. Maybe it was none at all, but I suspect talking to customers (or even internal employees) helped you reach some of the conclusions you made. It's really difficult to look at a graph and go, yes this is the thing that caused the change.
What actually made me dig into analytics and numbers are usability studies in the first place. They were planned as a routine I follow after every new design needs to be tested, but made me reveal some deeper problems like navigation, questions etc. Now, after covering the big picture, I maybe will write an article on smaller ones.
I feel like this is a classic example of abusing your knowledge about your product. You gotta account for the fact that users will usually come in having little knowledge about what your product is and will derive that from the functions available on your page. In the previous designs, you look at it and see:
- user generated requestst
- crowdsourced voting
- how easy submitting a request is, and what it entails
- the volume of requests you have
I see this in the larger context of icons8 and I get the sense that is akin to voting for a feature. This is something I could do, if I wanted.
The new design shows me:
- Weird titles that may or may not be some sort of request
And that's about it. Only five of them. Take that in the context of icons8 and I really can't parse what it means so I would probably just completely ignore it. On the request page, I don't see how approachable the request feature is, so I ignore it.
So essentially, they wanted to save $ 500 a month on uservoice.com and learned the hard way, that software is not a simple as it looks. That is also why they are not just rolling back but instead have used the opportunity to at least get some PR out of it.
Yea, it's not mentioned in the article at all - imho it should be - that the "original design" is in fact the UserVoice system and not icons8's design at all.
UserVoice has no doubt put a tremendous amount of effort into ensuring that users interact with the support system as much as possible. Not very smart to assume that you can re-do all of that work yourself.
Full disclosure: Happy user of the UserVoice system myself, grandfathered into the free plan but otherwise no relationship.
And, of course, I'm greeted by a huge image that I have to scroll all the way past in order get to the content. I'm not sure they learned their lesson.
People really like to make their life complicate, do not change the design of an existing product. There are other ways to make life interesting.
On the one hand designs tend to be overcomplicate - any design that is noticeable is overcomplicate - and on the other hand every 2 or 3 years people feel a urge to fix things that work.
Amazon is great at A|B testing their way to a great user experience. You may not agree just by looking at the UI but the metrics don't lie. Ok sometimes they are misinterpreted or gamed. But an honest look at feedback will work every time.
stepping back and looking at the big picture, I get this same feeling about many apps. Especially ones produced by Google, when you upgrade an app, suddenly the UI is totally new and you don't know how to use the app in the same way you did before.
Yes Google might not have chosen poor words in this case, but it does create friction when you switch around the whole UI.
The example I always cite is when Microsoft switched the whole UI in Office from the 2003 version to 2007 version. People who had mastered pivot tables were suddenly up the river without a paddle
Under that model of user expectations, I envision two groups of users: 1. the users who want to casually suggest an icon (and don't need it for anything critical or want to pay for it themselves, but who would happily use it if it became freely available) 2. the users who have a special request and would pay to have it done, regardless of how many other users want it.
Group number 1 won't bother clicking on "Request an icon", because they figure that the button is for members of group number 2. Group number 1 won't see an option for them, which changes site perceptions, because group number 1 has an impression that the site is for paid requests.
Group number 2 will click on "Request an icon", hoping to place an order, but will be disappointed and/or confused by what they see. Members of group number 2 might note that "Oh hey, it'd be nice if I could get this for free". But given that their need was sufficiently critical for them to want to pay commission, the option to submit an idea that may or may not be voted into existence at some unknown time won't seem promising enough for them to invest any more time in the matter.