Change – What Is It Good For?

I’ve been noticing a lot of social sites have been tweaking their layouts and functionality lately. Some have made a few small changes, while others have totally revamped the entire look of their site. While sites need to evolve in order to stay on top of their game, is there a point where too much change is bad? Let’s take a look at some of the recent transformations these popular sites have undergone.

StumbleUpon is currently making some changes such as allowing users to finally have more than 200 friends (which is long overdue in my opinion). Fans are now being called ‘subscribers’ and they have added the abilities to befriend members without following their stumbles and subscribe to their stumbles without becoming their friend. These are fairly minor changes that only really affect the functionality of the site. The layout and design has remained the same and so far, users haven’t minded the changes at all.

Twitter on the other hand has revealed design changes and left the original functionality alone. You still tweet the same, but a quick look at the site shows minor, but noticeable changes to the twitter feed and the left navigation bar. Personally I like the changes Twitter has made. The site feels cleaner, lighter and less chaotic than it used to. The feedback from users seems to be the same.

FriendFeed also rolled out design changes recently and I’ll admit, the changes took a little more getting used to. Things were significantly moved around – the tabs at the top have been moved to the right navigation bar and things like comments and likes have been given their own section for more organization. Everything still works the same and to me, it still feels the same as the old site – I just have to hunt a little more for what I’m looking for.

Most of these sites have gradually made changes, a few tweaks here and an extra button or two there, but the biggest and most dramatic changes have involved Facebook. Facebook had a complete nip, tuck and facelift. The site doesn’t look or feel the same as it has for years and there is barely one thing that was left in its original place. As someone who understands that websites need to grow to avoid becoming stagnant, I’m still a little put off by the extreme nature of the redesign. Facebook has an enormous amount of users that are on the site everyday, multiple times a day, and as one of those users, making such enormous changes to how the site looks and works feels a little excessive.

There is the saying you can please some of the people all of the time and all of the people some of the time, but you can’t please all the people all the time and this seems to be Facebook's defense. I agree it can be nearly impossible to please all your users and the most you can do is implement changes that you believe make the site better in the long run. But at what expense? Do massive site redesigns really help in the long run? Does it result in alienating core users? Or do they just need some time to accept the new look? Personally, I think colossal site changes like Facebook’s should only happen when absolutely necessary, and instead, a site should try to ease users into the direction they want them to go. There is another old saying that I think people should keep in mind: “It is better to take many small steps in the right direction, than to make a great leap forward only to stumble backward”.