User Experience : Impact of changing the UI designs
Every software has its own USP (Unique Selling Point). Most of the time it would be the features, or it would be the concept or its application in the real world. Software developers always work on improving the software more and more so that the software gets enhanced and improves the productivity of its customers.
In such a process, the software will reach certain stage, where it requires a complete over-haul or partial over haul. If this over haul pertains to engineering in the back-end, then mostly there would be no impact on the front-end UI. But, if the over-haul happens in the front-end UI, then there would be a heavy impact on the front-end.
One such classic example is Microsoft’s Ribbon UI which was introduced in Office 2007. Though the concept behind the UI pattern is absolutely great, many regular users of Microsoft Word find it difficult to adapt. Which means, people were used to the old UI and they are not ready to learn the new UI all of a sudden. This is one of the disadvantages of binary applications. The applications gets updated once in a year or once in two years, and when a change is applied in the UI, it definitely creates a setback from regular users.
In general, any UI change will take some time to get used to. Micorosoft’s Ribbon UI will take some time to gain the old users back. But it is evident that some people may decide to remain happy with earlier versions itself. And this gap of the user base will be eventually filled by new users. All Microsoft has to do is - wait. It certainly takes time for a UI change to get criticized and then gets slowly adopted. On the graph plot, this period of time will make the pointer go downwards, but after a certain period of time, it will go upwards gradually. In software business, sometimes this is a must-to-take risk.
In web applications, one can avoid such a setback by doing incremental UI change. Apply the changes in small amount, educate the users about the changes applied and after a certain period of time, the complete change will be applied. Thus user’s will not have a alien-feeling towards the application. This way you can retain your customers/users.
Another approach in applying a change is providing two paths. One leading to the old UI and other leading to the new UI. To initiate change, offer an option to try the new UI and let the users to switch back if the new UI is not upto their liking. When they switch back, get feedback and analyse.
In any case, changing the UI is not a simple process. It deals with user’s loyalty. Unless the UI change dramatically enhances productivity or solves any existing problem, users may take more time to adopt the change. It is every IxD/UX designers responsibility to ensure the change is carried successfully without losing any existing users.
- Rajesh Sundaram