Ch...ch...changes
Ask any Facebook user what they think whenever the site undergoes a redesign and they're sure to have things to complain about.
So why do popular social media sites feel the need to constantly tinker with their layout?
Or more importantly mess with the brand experience of their so called valued customers?
I've never seen a user experience survey on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube or even Foursquare. So why have all of them have changed recently?
Call me a grumpy old git if you want to but most of these changes seem to be nothing more than change for change sake.
And if a redesign requires a five minute video to explain the changes then surely something must be wrong.
Especially as YouTube was a pretty straightforward and easy to use site to begin with.
Yes I admit constant tinkering in the name of improvement is important. Especially in the digital world.
But why oh why do social media sites have to keep on messing with my brand experience?
posted by Stan Lee at 1:47 am
7 Comments:
I'm going to argue in favour of Youtube on this one. The one social network which hasn't changed? Myspace.
Constant incremental improvement works, but occasionally you have to make a big change - for instance, the fact that Youtube has switched to HTML5, iPad compatible videos.
And inevitably if the changes are good ones, the upset dies down for most people after a day or two - it's what I term 'The Supermarket Effect':
http://thewayoftheweb.net/2008/11/the-supermarket-effect-and-how-to-minimise-it/
I do not think the recent "improvements" to YouTube enhanced the experience in any way. I actually think they made it worse, because I can no longer open videos in separate tabs like I did.
Twitter changes stuff all the time, and never with any kind of announcement (nor input, as you point out). I think Twitter is arrogant and assumes everyone will tweet the changes for them…once the changes have been discovered.
I can't comment on Facebook — no account there anymore. I hate it. Completely.
I think these sites make changes with two constituencies in mind: (1) The squeaky wheels, e.g. those tech nerds who blog endlessly about the obscure and ridiculously irrelevant things that Absolutely Must Happen In Order to Improve [insert name of social media platform here]. (2) The tech press…Mashable, Tech Crunch, etc.
I'm with Dan on this one... if you think your product is perfect from day one and aren't prepared to try and constantly improve it, someone else will come in with those improvements and your brand will disappear in time - as MySpace surely will.
Do you use Facebook or YouTube any less because of the changes?
Or, like the rest of the community, do you forget about it in two weeks?
considering the internet is such a public space - maybe not by technical ownership, but certainly by modes of engagement, it also disturbs me that there is this constant flip. like constant renovations or redecorating your local train station - nice in theory, but when you just wanna be able to buy a ticket and run onto the platform before the doors shut, annoying.
i would like to see a little more conversation about changes happening - like a DA notice or something. most of the time, i probably won't care and will adapt, but it's nice to know. prepare, or at least forget and remember again.
i think unnamed, unspoken changes to sites that leverage their power on their 'social media überlord status' does have a whiff of arrogance about it.
Love the train station analogy Lauren. Which is exactly what I was getting at.
I agree, the sporadic social site changes can sometimes be inconvenient and without notice; but I also feel that the level of concern over the changes has been in excess.
Ok, so they changed the layout, you probably won't like it because it's unfamiliar. You can't find the right tabs...Who does like it when they can't find what they're looking for? But the reality is that the changes are often for the better, we just haven't acknowledged it yet.
Anyway, remember, these site are free. Thats something we're all quick to forget and maybe more conversation about the changes would be a good idea, but then maybe we should get out more, enjoy our ever changing digital habitat and remember that in the digital world, evolution is often the best option for survival.
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