Carefully, redesign: "voice of the people" vs "eye of the designer"

For many, dramatic changes evoke a clean slate and hope for the best. In this regard, terms such as rebirthing, refactoring, rebranding, redesign, and so on have become fashionable. But some are ready to write this blank sheet with arguments about how good the old version is, and to demand to return everything to full circle.

Often such criticism is really reasoned and useful. Sometimes it is even recognized by those to whom it is directed. In exceptional cases, they decide to return the very “old version”. And sometimes the opposite - public opinion is completely ignored, and this, oddly enough, leads to positive results.
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Flamp, the service of feedback on companies and services, will be updated in the next few months. The logo of the service, its corporate identity will change. The site will be restarted with a new design and improved functionality. This is stated in the message on the Flamp. The beta version of the new site is available to users in a test mode.



On the new main page of the updated “Flamp” there are headings and a search line through which you can search for companies not only by name or sphere, but also using discovery queries - for example, “a round-the-clock bar on the right bank with Wi-Fi”.



In addition, the new "Flamp" refused when displaying the rating of the company from the stars - instead of entered estimates on a five-point scale up to the tenth.



According to Yevgeny Vasilkov, the company's director, the new Flamp is a compilation of ideas “with verticals and messengers” and the presentation of Flamp itself about what communication on the Internet between residents of the city and business should be.



In particular, for this, developers have added the ability to write a personal message to a company representative. Company representative Sergey Tomilov also added that Flamp plans to activate the possibility of ordering the services of companies directly through the service.



“In the future, there is no place for a one-sided assessment of a company by a client - interaction is the key here. And the central idea of ​​Flamp is to build this bridge between the client and the company, ”explained Evgeny Vasilkov.

Meanwhile, the old version of the Flamp is slowly and sadly living its days. “Closer to the fall of 2016, the new website design will completely replace the current one,” said Sergey Tomilov.



Flamp Review Service was launched by 2GIS in 2011. At first, it was available only for Novosibirsk, and by 2015 it existed in 91 cities of Russia, including all major cities of Siberia.



According to Tomilov, by this time the monthly audience of Flamp is more than 3.5 million people, while about 50 thousand companies have registered on the service.

However, there is a possibility that the service will start losing its audience. The news of the redesign was perceived, to put it mildly, ambiguous.




Some users suggested collecting signatures for keeping the old version of “Flamp”.

Criticism and the intention to return the old version, by submitting a collective complaint, resembles a story with the restart of the site “Film Search.

"Kina will not"

At the beginning of October 2015, Yandex showed an updated movie site, Kinopoisk. The main page of the service is a personalized showcase of movies and TV shows.



She clearly demonstrated what is on the box and what new items have appeared online. In addition, with its help you could see the charts of popular films, thematic selections and the schedule of premieres.



In addition to changes in the design of the site, there have been changes in its concept. Kinopoisk turned into an online cinema and became an aggregator of video content. Partners of the service were Amadeiatek, ivi.ru, Megogo, Tvzavr, Pladform, VGTRK, CTC Media, Rutube, Ayyo Movies.

Great hopes of the service developers pinned on the recommendation system. Comments and user ratings should help in the formation of the rating and serve as the main factor for the recommendation system. The more often the user will give ratings, the more accurate the recommendations will be, explained in Yandex.



However, numerous users and even its formal creator Vitaly Tatsiy criticized the updated version of the service:



Dissatisfied users created a petition demanding the return of the old version of the portal. After that, the management restored the previous design, but supposedly only for a while.



The updated version of the Kinopoisk.ru website lasted only four days, and Yandex lost tens of millions of rubles.

But what statement did the Kinopoisk team spread through the Yandex press service:

We foresaw that the reaction would be acute - from denial to delight. So it happened. When the project does not change over the years, the audience is keenly reacting to any changes. For 10 years, both service capabilities and design trends have changed.

Before rolling out the new version, from about May to October, we showed a closed beta version to Yandex employees, which is about 6,000 people. For many of them, KinoPoisk is one of their favorite services, and we received a huge amount of useful feedback, which resulted in changes to the project. After we worked with the responses inside, we went to the "outside world".

Now we carefully analyze all appeals and try to respond to each. Our main task is to do everything to help users get used to the new version, and to continue to develop KinoPoisk thanks to the ideas and wishes of our audience.

Thanks to the insistent demands of users, Yandex returned the previous design of Kinopoisk.



Here is what the press service of the company wrote about:

We apologize to all who have difficulties with the updated KinoPoisk, and, as soon as it becomes technically possible, we will open for users the version in the previous design on a separate domain. This version will work until we make sure that we have prepared all the conditions for the comfortable relocation of all our users.

At the same time, the “KinoPoisk” team continues to collect feedback: it is important for us to make sure that all new functions are understandable, and we have retained all the significant things that users have asked us for.

Delving into the halls of memory, we can recall another confrontation in which disgruntled users suffered a crushing defeat.

Facebook users vs Facebook Messenger

In August 2014, the social network Facebook began to gradually abandon the function of exchanging personal messages in its mobile applications for iOS and Android platforms. Mobile users who want to continue using them to communicate on Facebook should have downloaded the new application, Facebook Messenger .

Many users disagreed with low ratings on the Apple App Store.

Soon Facebook Messenger came out on top among free programs on the Apple App Store in the USA. At the same time, the total rating set by users of the program is equal to one - this is the lowest rating for the application on the App Store. This assessment program put more than 5.8 thousand people from 6.4 thousand.



User dissatisfaction with the mandatory switch to Messenger, expressed in ratings, was manifested not only in the United States. The current version of the app on the App Store in Australia, Canada, China, France and Germany is also rated only one star, according to the analyst firm App Annie.



Until now, Facebook’s mobile apps have always contained a full-featured personal messaging tab. For users who have the Messenger application installed on their smartphones, Facebook has replaced the tab with messages with a link that launches the instant messenger.

As we know, despite the protests of the recalcitrant, the messenger fit into the facebook community.

Instagram Redesign

On April 9, 2012, Facebook announced it was acquiring Instagram for $ 1 billion. Instagram was launched in October 2010 and until April 2012 was presented only as an application for the iPhone, iPad and iPod. By the end of March 2012, the number of photo service users reached 30 million.

May 11, 2016 Instagram has been updated to the eighth version. Dramatically changed the icon and interface of the application. The camera has become more stylized, and the logo itself has become a rainbow gradient icon.



Head of Design Ian Spalter told how the redesign was going on and why the team made these changes.

According to Spalter, the concept of Instagram has changed in five years. “Initially, Instagram was a place where people could share photos. Now this community is divided according to interests, ”Spalter says.
The team worked on the design for a year. The original, skepho-morphic icon was one of the features of the application, but the company understood that it was outdated.

“We started with basic things - we removed the ornament, simplified it and made the icon flat and bright,” says Spalter. Designers wanted to leave something from the original icon. In their opinion, users liked the rainbow and camera lens the most. The lens was left, and the color scheme of the whole icon was made rainbow.

Bright colors are a hallmark of the Instagram community, so the icon is made in bright and warm colors. The orange gradient changes smoothly and turns purple to the top of the icon. In the very same application, the interface has become monochrome, in order to focus the attention of users on the content - photos.



“The evolution of the community inspired us and we want to believe that we were able to capture the life, creativity and optimism of people who go to Instagram every day. We hope that after seeing the updated icon, people will spark another spark of creativity to make something beautiful and unusual, ”Spalter sums up.

Some users of social networks negatively perceived the new Instagram design. After changing the appearance of the application on Twitter, critical evaluations of a black and white interface and a bright service icon began to appear.



Instagram was the last popular application to abandon the stylistics of ske-morphism, giving virtual objects the appearance of real objects. The fact is that the previous logo of the service resembled a real retro-camera.

At the moment, another social network is undergoing changes, this time the Russian one.

Sacred number "10"

The social network VKontakte began the forced transfer of its users to the new design, which it introduced on April 1, 2016. The social network has updated the design of its web version for the first time in 10 years of existence.



As they say in the message, at the moment for 10% of randomly selected users the application is launched in a new design. Those who voluntarily switched to the new version will be able to return to the old version for a while, until the redesign is included for everyone. The above 10% of this can no longer be done.

Naturally, unflattering remarks from “delighted” users fell to the social network:







The technical support response followed: “Our site will soon be 10 years old. During this time, it has come a long way: developers are constantly adding new services and improving the quality of existing ones. But you can not always move in small steps. There are some things that can not be raised to the standards of tomorrow without full processing. Basic information about website redesign can be found in the official blog of developers »

One of the users dissatisfied with the mandatory installation of the new VKontakte design even created a petition on Change.org demanding to retain the “ability to use the old design” and also give users the “right to choose”.

For the sake of justice

What will happen now with “Flamp” and “Vkontakte” is not 100% known. In fairness it should be noted that in all the listed stories there were users who positively evaluated the redesign and its consequences. On the other hand, not all designers are obliged to be guided by the majority opinion, since they are guided in their work by the opinion of experts and a small circle of trusted representatives.

But users inspired by the history of Kinopoisk have reason to hope that their comments will at least be taken into account. And especially optimistic ones, for sure, believe that the requirements to return the previous version of the design will be fulfilled.