Do you hate when website change?

Post Reply New Topic

I'm talking about updates and stuff. Do you hate when a website changes unnoticed? I thought I'd ask because Tumblr recently did this. It changed everything and omg... it was so overwhelming. I almost screamed. D: I tried to email them to explain to them how upsetting it is, and that maybe they could at least give an option to go back to the old layout... but noooo they decided to be ignorant jerks saying how I'd just have to get used to it. I don't think a lot of websites that do this understand how hard it is for us.

So, anyway... what the topic title says.

I dislike when formerly desktop/laptop-designed web sites are replaced with tablet/phone-designed mobile apps. Much of the information is now hidden (or simply deleted) for space, and navigating the site is about as enjoyable as navigating an ATM. What a way to put a friendly face on your businesses, corporate America!

It sort of depends on how it changes...if its an improvement than I don't really mind, though may come as a bit of a shock if there is no warning and its a drastic change. But if it goes down-hill like one site I used to go to then yes it bothers me.

I quit wrongplanet for a long time and when I come back it changed a lot But I get used to things eventually. Once I get over the initial fact it's changed I can understand the positives - wrongplanet is so much cleaner and clearer than it was before, even if it's not what I am used to. Things can't stay the same forever.

Yes, I hate this.

I'm still not used to the change here at WP, the forums are now much too bright for me.

As a programmer / developer I always allow users to "roll back" to a previous version where possible.

Unfortunately however, often the backend changes significantly and previous versions will stop working altogether, but I attempt to make any new versions as similar in appearance as I'm able and not make to many changes at once (as well as giving warning, "Hey! New version is coming sometime, here's what's new!")

But its a double edged sword, I'm sure most would be surprised how often I hear that something looks outdated. (it probably does, but it works and is perfectly functional).

Improvements don't always make things better.

Small updates and tweaks I don't mind, provided they actually do something positive and fix things that need to be fixed. However I can't stand major overhauls. I find them jarring, especially if they are pointless...like with the recent tumblr change. I had to take a break for a little while because of it.

I dislike websites changing.

Between them, Hotmail and WP (and possibly Firefox) have made a complete mess of my preferred way of working.

Old experience:
Log into Hotmail
Open WP notification email
Click the link
Read new posts
Submit post
Read submitted post

New experience:
Log into Hotmail
Keep clicking until notification email finally condescends to open
Click the link
Get taken to WP login screen (even for public threads!)
Log in, check "keep me logged in"
Curse as a second, slightly different login screen appears
Log in a second time
Curse as WP takes me to my user profile instead of the thread I want
Go back to Hotmail to click the thread link again
Curse as Hotmail closes the email, freezes up and hogs the system resources for a minute or two
Click the link
Read posts
Submit post
Curse as WP takes me to my user profile
Press back button, re-submit
Get a message saying something went wrong, try again
Press back button, re-submit
Read submitted post

Which experience would you prefer?

Yep, especially when they completely overhaul the look and make it look really awful. I hate that a lot of sites have decided that a lot more white background is better, it really hurts my eyes

It's annoying that they decide a perfectly good design has to go just for the sake of looking different. You don't need to overhaul the layout to make the site better, sometimes it just makes it worse.

I'd be happier with upgrades if they were always optional and under the complete control of the user. I don't see why it couldn't be done. Instead of increasing the brightness, why not just provide a user control for brightness, or a set of alternative skins like they do with media players? For the problem I described before, I'd have been happy with a simple switch to choose between normal and awkward login behaviour.

I used to throw a fit whenever Youtube or Google or Deviantart made changes, but now, I've seen it happen so many times that it's no longer shocking to me.