Maybe you are just plain tired of looking at the same colors every time you open up your web page. Maybe there is a really great script that will help your users do so much more, and save time. Or maybe you have ran out of things to do and you need to look busy.
Whatever the reason, you are set on a course of site redesign, and there is no turning back. Hey, you have already convinced everyone in your office how great this is going to work out. You have to make this work! One problem though, when you went through this 2 years ago, there were not quite the rave reviews you were hoping for.
Turns out, folks get used to doing things a certain way. They find comfort in seeing the same things in the same locations. Even if they have to click 14 times to get widget x to send their information, they know that 14 clicks is what it takes. You think, "I can make this take only 7 1/2 clicks". A great idea, everyone agrees. You implement the change expecting accolades from all of your users, and you get the first batch of emails.
Dear Webmaster,
I was looking forward to my daily click fest, making a friendly wager with my friend that I bet I could click 14 times in a far more dexterous manner than they. To my surprise, somewhere after 10 clicks I had signed up for 4 1/2 spam news letters, did something change? btw, you owe me a dollar two ninety eight.
...and the undeniable..
Dear Support,
I don't like it, blue is not my favorite color.
Of course not mentioning what their favorite color is, nor letting you know where in the world they saw blue on the new site!
For a most part, and depending on your audience, people are uncomfortable with change. When you find yourself in a position where you must, consider these points.
* try to search through old emails and see if there are any points of agreement, at least a couple people, before making a change that affects the user's experience
* Make your changes in subtle increments, go for 12 clicks instead of 7 1/2 to start with!
* Present your changes to some random people for review, but do not tell them what you changed. This will help you get an unbiased opinion
* Save a copy of the previous version
Eric Johnson is a Game and Software Developer. He has been coding for over 15 years in a variety of languages. He previously taught software development for a national technical school. For the past 10 years he has worked at Tournament Games Inc, the grand-daddy of casual game sites.
http://www.tournamentgames.com
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Charles_Eric_Johnson
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