Re: [Design] Design and change

On 26.08.2014, at 21:46, Jon Robson <jrobson(a)wikimedia.org> wrote: tldr: Change is scary to most people but we shouldn't be scared of making change. Is it clear what change we are bringing about? If it's not to us, how can it be to others? I think our process of bringing about change is the issue. Longer version: I'm a little confused about this thread, I can only assume it's in the context of MMV so will work with that assumption. Personally, I think pushback to any design change is a given. I hated the new Foursquare app when it came out for example, I still don't like it. I didn't like the new iOS design when it came out but I've grown to appreciate it over time. I loved the new Flickr redesign from day 1. Big changes are always going to result in polarity in the community. Change is scary to most people. There are loads of essays out there on why. We have to be more confident about our changes, and not allow ourselves to be put off by pushback. I don't think this should put us off making radical changes. In fact we are better positioned then most sites in that we can make the path to change more comfortable. We have: * a beta feature mode where we can refine features and get feedback * an entire skin system, which would allow us to build radically different skins without upsetting the status quo of Vector/Monobook * we allow individuals to customise their own experience - the typography refresh for example came with some user css that could revert the change. * a completely different infrastructure on the mobile site where we can experiment with new ideas where change doesn't seem to cause as much irritation. When I worked on typography refresh, when it went live a lot of people were seeing it for the first time and reacted angrily. A lot of people who had seen it were annoyed as they felt it 'wasn't ready'. I think the real problem with pushback for a design is when it is a __sudden__, __big__ change. It's clear to me that we don't do a very good job about communicating release dates/our work on feature. This is not surprising when we have such fragmented conversation places - mailing lists, Village pump, beta feature talk pages, engineering report to name a few. We need to find ways of setting expectations and communicating better. Even I don't know the answers to the following questions: * Do things in Beta Features always eventually become default? (Will Hovercards ever be default?) * How do I know what things in Beta Features are going to become default? Why do the others exist? What are their goals? * When will they become default? (Does Hovercards have a rough release date? Did we set an expectation of when Multimedia Viewer would be made default?) *. Is our community aware of the vision/and what we are working on? If they knew that would they be reacting differently to it right now, maybe even helping us more? * Should all our new features have an opt out? I really feel like our main problem is that we are not very good at setting expectations and we surprise our community far too often. We have the tools we just are not using them well at all. We need to find the right way for us to bring about change with the least amount of resistance. On Tue, Aug 26, 2014 at 12:52 AM, Pau Giner <pginer(a)wikimedia.org> wrote: _______________________________________________ Design mailing list Design(a)lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/design