I just wanted to say I agree and I was thinking this would be the conclusion as well.
I cannot count how many times a major versioning of a large piece of software that was tied in with a UI redesign signaled a massive overturning in positive usability and focus of the authoring company but.... it's been almost every time.
The greatest 'power user' focused engineering programs I formed my career around all had something similar in common: they had a core UI that was brilliant in the way it worked, and stable. New features got added to that base UI as incremental menus, additional icons in workbenches, and every now and then an extra menu or two.
But they didn't go wiping the slate clean and coming up with complete new workflows. They kept it familiar while improving the end-user productivity, and THAT is what kept customers re-upping their licenses year after year after year. Add things for those who already are users. Expand where needed. Don't rock the boat unless really needed... because nearly ever time I've seen that boat rocked the MBA's and 'Designers' doing the rocking are under the impression they are smarter than the people who built the boat in the first place.
Dassault Systèmes has spent a decade recovering from the absolutely asinine decision to revamp the UI of one of the greatest engineering tools of the modern era (CATIA V5), to make the icons glow all cool and be completely blue/gray duotone with one fucking hue and far less functional density, purportedly because someone in their infinite business/designer school wisdom thought it looked more 'modern' and signified 'change', resulting in the absolute backwards fucking step that was CATIA V6. They've been backpedalling ever since, IMO.
If you don't change the UI, nobody notices- and that's usually a good thing....
I agree the "more technical" UIs (generally--except for egregious examples like CATIA V6) suffer less from sort of arbitrary breakage.
> the MBA's and 'Designers' doing the rocking are under the impression they are smarter than the people who built the boat in the first place.
Exactly. It's a function of power and incentives. In the organizations we build there are people who have the power to hurt users, and the incentive to exercise that power in a visible way. They aren't intending to hurt users, that's just a by-product. Instead, they're trying to "delight" users, as if the user is some kind of infantile homunculus instead of a thinking person doing important work.
I cannot count how many times a major versioning of a large piece of software that was tied in with a UI redesign signaled a massive overturning in positive usability and focus of the authoring company but.... it's been almost every time.
The greatest 'power user' focused engineering programs I formed my career around all had something similar in common: they had a core UI that was brilliant in the way it worked, and stable. New features got added to that base UI as incremental menus, additional icons in workbenches, and every now and then an extra menu or two.
But they didn't go wiping the slate clean and coming up with complete new workflows. They kept it familiar while improving the end-user productivity, and THAT is what kept customers re-upping their licenses year after year after year. Add things for those who already are users. Expand where needed. Don't rock the boat unless really needed... because nearly ever time I've seen that boat rocked the MBA's and 'Designers' doing the rocking are under the impression they are smarter than the people who built the boat in the first place.
Dassault Systèmes has spent a decade recovering from the absolutely asinine decision to revamp the UI of one of the greatest engineering tools of the modern era (CATIA V5), to make the icons glow all cool and be completely blue/gray duotone with one fucking hue and far less functional density, purportedly because someone in their infinite business/designer school wisdom thought it looked more 'modern' and signified 'change', resulting in the absolute backwards fucking step that was CATIA V6. They've been backpedalling ever since, IMO.
If you don't change the UI, nobody notices- and that's usually a good thing....