User Interfaces

There is a blog here: http://blogs.zdnet.com/hardware/?p=4467 that discuses users moving from Windows XP, the primary windows user base, to Windows 7. As with almost anything that discuses Windows where user comments are allowed a flame war started. Normally I just skip over these but I found the subject of this one very intriguing; Microsoft and it's constant changing of the user interfaces (UIs), good or bad?

Some very interesting points were actually made in between the insults being thrown back and forth and I'll try to present both sides of the argument.

Side A; Unless there is some ground-breaking change to a UI that will add significant advantages over the current one, it shouldn't be changed at all due to the cost and trouble of users having to relearn how to do things (like open a file). Most users are just trying to get their job done and using a computer is a means to that end, nothing more. Unless there is a better way to do their job they shouldn't have to relearn how to do it. Period.

Side B; Technology changes and interfaces change with them. Users should expect to have to familiarize themselves with a new UI for a piece of technology in the same way they would have to, and be expected to, familiarize themselves with new controls for a vehicle. Say going from a '70 Chevy to a '09 Prius. It's also likely that the UI hasn't changed much unless there really is new functionality that the old interface wouldn't support. It really probably just looks a bit different and once you look past the new colors and graphics you'll see it's mostly the same.

My Take; I'm not agreeing and disagreeing with either of them. I definitely think changing the UI for no good reason is really annoying and I myself get irritated every time I find something that I used to know right where it was has moved. On the other hand I'm a developer and I actually have to make the call to change the UI at times. I've experienced first hand the ridiculous lash-backs from users about having to learn a new interface that I know is better. I've also seen first hand that it's only a few users that really seem to have a problem. Out of my 2500 users of this small application that I drastically changed the interface on (because the old one wouldn't support new features) I had about ten users call and complain. Out of those ten, one called back repeatedly and accounted for about 98% of the complaints.

So what's the point of this post if I'm not going to take a side? It's just to ask people to be aware that UIs do have to change sometimes to move things along. This isn't always the case and users have a right to be annoyed when they get changes for PR purposes but before you flame your developers please take a few extra seconds to see if there really is some benefit to the annoying new UI.