ARTICLE SUMMARY: Henry Rollins once said “Change is hard, but change is good.” So true for a majority of people, and then you have a few people who take to change like ducks to water.
People are creatures of habit, they get in rut where everything is in its proper place, they are used to doing things a certain way and they are comfortable with the way their tools and apps work. They wonder why change something that works well for them.
As designers we need to factor that in when we are tasked with redesigning digital products. We are problem solvers and this is one problem that sometimes does not get the level of consideration it deserves and that could be costly.
“Help your customer navigate change” by Beau Ulrey takes a look at this issue discusses the pros and cons of this approach in redesigning our digital products. He looks at
- Natural vs. digital
- Change curve
- Incremental change vs. feature frenzy
There is a lot to be said about the anxiety massive changes to the familiar brings a person. Everyone navigates change at a different rate along a common curve, widely known as the change curve, originally created by psychologist Kübler Ross who’s work looked at navigating the loss of loved ones and now has been applied to navigating change at work and in daily life as well.
While clients and designers like big glitzy announcements to bring attention to their improved products, it’s not always the right move.
The article has a lot of good information worth reading, let us know what you think in the comments.
