I Hate You, I Love You

October 18th, 2007Design, Web Design, Web Development

Anyone that’s stepped into the blast radius of a major redesign can tell you a thing or two about typical user reactions. From riding the bomb Slim Pickens-style to lab-coat-and-safety-goggles observation, I’ve weathered my share. Make a fundamental change to an existing product and reaction tends towards the swift and merciless.

Turn & Face the Strain

In every redesign I’ve ever been involved with user responses have followed a predictable pattern. You can group them into two broad categories: Negatives and Positives. (No creativity here—they’re exactly what they sound like.) Negatives tell you how much your update pulls a serious vacuum. Positives testify that you’re the bee’s knees. Both come from self-selecting users, since contact requires some kind of effort. (No matter how small—it’s what highfalutin types call a “barrier to entry”.) Kicking in the moment you pull back the curtain on your zippy new gewgaw, it looks something like this:

graph of positive and negative user reactions over time

Quantity of positive and negative user reactions over time.

Almost instantly there’s the glut of reactionary feedback—the Who Moved My Cheese? set. Glean what you can from these comments, look for common threads, but remember not to let that five-hundredth “WTF?! Ur new design iS teh suck,” e-mail get you down. That’s the important bit. As designers, developers, and all around “Builders of the Interwebs” we pour or hearts and souls into our projects. (At least if you’re like me you do.) Even ironclad stalwarts can’t help but have their outlook dimmed a bit by that first feedback wave.

Stick it out though and—if you’ve done your job well—you’ll be through the squall, sitting pretty at the other end of the graph soon enough. Eventually the rest of the crowd chimes in. And the remaining negative comments shed their emotional edge, taking on a more constructive character.

Keep the wheat, lose the chaff. Quickly, lest you stew in it.

Something in the Blood

Earlier today I got to wondering what makes the Negatives so vocal compared to their Positive peers. Even when your audience research finds nothing but giddy users you don’t hear from them much. But even small sets of Negatives don’t have trouble making their presence known.

During an interesting chat Chris Fahey set me on the right track by pointing out something I’d overlooked: Negatives want to affect change, Positives are confirming assent. I hadn’t thought of it that way before, but he’s absolutely right, and it explains a lot about their respective behavior. Negatives have the motivation to act since they want something done. Positives stay mum because, ultimately, they want nothing done.

Comments

Zeldman October 18th, 2007 at 7:56 am

beautifully put and rings true.

David Sleight October 18th, 2007 at 1:40 pm

Thanks. My guess is that many experienced designers intuit this already. But I still run into folks who don’t steel themselves for it and get a little thrown post-launch by the initial reactionary fits.

David October 22nd, 2007 at 3:43 pm

Interesting read, but not too sure on the graphical representation you have there. if you get that level of negative feed back out the gate, its usually cause you actually have done something wrong or shockingly upfamiliar. If every single job you do gets this type of waved feedback, I’d say sit down and actually rethink your solution. Unless i have simply had a good life that negative wave should be about half that size coming out the gate.

i do agree that the positive comments generally come in slowly, but thats natural because you are introducing something new. usually,like you mentioned, the negative critiques do get less emotional and become constructive and needed, so do pay attention to them as they will most often lead you in the right direction, once the now “teh sux” (lol) people leave.

David Sleight October 23rd, 2007 at 11:42 pm

David: To be clear, I’m talking about a major redesign of a large-scale product. Human nature being what it is, I think the spike is quite common. Even with products recognized over time as superior by audiences. Peoples is peoples, and sometimes peoples are pretty darn reactionary.

Actually, when I don’t see the initial negative spike on The Big Launch I worry way more. Silence from the most vocal contingent of your audience is dreadful ominous.

Tracy December 4th, 2007 at 2:11 pm

This thought made me smile, as I’m in the middle of weathering this very thing right now. Thanks for the reminder. It’s true the negatives become constructive after awhile and that is a good thing. I find also that some of the negative’s just need to live with change for a bit before they accept new things - hence the initial reactionary response.

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