On Thu, Jul 10, 2014 at 4:12 PM, MZMcBride <z...@mzmcbride.com> wrote: > Many new features (e.g., the improved search backend) are deployed fairly > regularly > without fanfare or objection.
Indeed, change-aversion tends to correlate pretty strongly with impact on existing workflows [1] and noticeable changes to user experience and behavior. This is pretty clearly laid out by a Google UX researcher here: https://www.gv.com/lib/change-aversion-why-users-hate-what-you-launched-and-what-to-do-about-it Media Viewer is actually a perfect example of this -- most of the functionality people expect (get to the File: page, see a summary, see categories, get the full-size version, get multiple resolutions, see attribution information, etc.) is there; it just takes a little while to get used to it being in a different place, and a negative first reaction is perfectly understandable. It's normal and expected that the first reaction to noticeable user experience changes will often be negative. This is why we shouldn't base decision-making solely on early-stage RFCs and first reactions. Just look at the responses to major redesigns by Flickr, NYT, and others -- almost universally negative, irrespective of what the data actually says about user and readership growth or decline as a consequence of these changes. The difference between us and more corporate approaches to product and user experience design is that we work very closely with the community in the product development cycle, and Media Viewer is again a good example of a multi-month development process with lots of community participation and consultation and a dedicated community liaison (Keegan) supporting the process throughout. But we'll still face the normal patterns of first reactions described in the article above. For this reason, we need to apply judgment on a case-by-case basis when interpreting these types of responses. Erik [1] http://xkcd.com/1172/ -- Erik Möller VP of Engineering and Product Development, Wikimedia Foundation _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>
