Bad User Interface Designs
I’ve written a few times about The Sixty One. I thought it was a great example of a web app that works well. I was able to discover some great new bands and for a few of them I track their progress to see if they come to town and play.
Unfortunately, The Sixty One is a prime example of how redesigning the user interface can make your existing user base very angry and make them leave. Common complaints about the new design are “antisocial and unnavigable” and I happen to agree with them. The new changes made a great music discovery site not nearly as much fun and discover new bands. It sure looks pretty though.
Microsoft has gone through similar criticism with the Office ribbon. Some people love it and others hate it. The few times I’ve used Office with the ribbon I was frustrated beyond belief because of the way *I* learn how to use applications.
A friend recently commented to me that they learned to like the ribbon. I’m not sure that Microsoft would get that benefit (of time) if Office wasn’t ubiquitous. I can say that as a Mac user I’m not excited about getting the ribbon in the next version of Office but them I’m already using Pages and Numbers more and more because they do everything I need them to do for far less money and less bloat.
From my own experience, we went through interface changes on Task Timer, our Mac/Windows desktop application that tracks your time. It’s a very simple interface. Version 1 and 2 let you track one project/task combination at a time. People complained so we opened it up to five. People (mainly lawyers – go figure) said that five simultaneous timers weren’t enough so we made it unlimited.
We rewrote the interface to allow an unlimited number of simultaneous timers and project and task combinations. The beta users were very happy and we were happy too (since we use it every day as well). We released and the very first bug report was from a long-timer user who complained that we destroyed the simplicity of the interface. I guess there’s no winning. Thankfully, with a few minor tweaks we were able to make that customer satisfied but most users will just walk away in disgust. It’s not easy to get a second chance.
Every time FaceBook changes their layout there’s always a round of complaints. I generally fall into the group that is willing to work with it but I do have to admit that I generally don’t mind the changes after I’ve gotten used to it. But then, I also find that the new interface isn’t that much better than the old one – usually.
I sometimes think that companies redesign their website and products because they’ve got designers on staff and they think the designers need to earn their keep. Don’t fall into that trap and change the interface ‘just because’.
Interface changes should be well thought out to satisfy existing users and to get new ones. Doing so without some serious thought and effort, both before and after the change, can result in people abandoning your product or service. Tough to stay in business that way.
Any other examples of a bad user interface change?
A message aggregating app, as you are proposing will NEVER happen. So get off your horse. The biggest problem is that each message sending service (text-messaging, email, Facebook, Twitter, Linkln, TextPlus, etc.) has different protocols and interfaces that are created AND CHANGED over time by their respective developers. Thus a message aggregating app has to be extensible enough that it can access an arbitrary number of third party protocols. From your point of view, simply merging text-messaging and email is NOT enough. You want all your messaging systems merged. Sorry, but that would force Apple to keep track of every Tom-Dick-and-Harry developer and to keep repeatedly upgrading its app to connect their systems. Apple already allows each 3rd party system to notify you of messages via the push notification manager. That way, so long as you answer each message immediately, the system essentially gives you what you want. The other big problem is that for security purposes, each 3rd party app is in its own walled garden. It cannot control another app's data. This prevents the creation of any 3rd party app that aggregates the data. The other big problem is that payment for each messaging service is different in different countries. Sending email is FREE other than paying your monthly data bill. But sending text-messages IS NOT FREE. And the price of text messages varies with each carrier. Text messaging is big business that pulls in enormous amounts of money for each carrier. The danger of merging a free service and a non-free service is having the user inadvertently sending text-messages when they should instead send an email message. This can end up costing users thousands of dollars in new bills. Apple does not like user confusion. And the confusion of text-messages and email can be costly to many users. This makes merging text-messages and email unacceptable to Apple. And another problem of merging messaging systems is that each messaging system has various levels of reliability. Text messages, for example, are NOT GUARANTEED to reach the recipient. A text message is not stored in the carrier's system forever. It is sent and stored for only a brief time. Email messages are stored in the email service's servers. Depending on that service's policies, the email can be stored indefinitely and retrieved at any time. An exception, for example, is Yahoo - which will close down one's email mailbox if you don't use it within 4 months, regardless of whether or not it is receiving email. Thus, aggregating the various messaging systems can cause confusion because each one has various levels of reliability. If your boss, for example, sent you an order to do something via text messaging, and you are out of the area for text-messaging service, you may NOT get your boss's order and would get into serious trouble with him if he expected the text-message to be a reliable way of communication like an email message would be. The various levels of unreliability in the transmission of messages can create user confusion if the messages were all aggregated. Again, user confusion is unacceptable to Apple. It is simpler to let each service have their own app and their own accountability failures and crashes and bugs in their system. Thus, there is no problem to fix. The best solution is to have each messaging system account for their own level of reliability, bugs, crashes, and failures. Thus the consumers can better lay the blame for any failures in communication.
