At least we'll always have Frank

[rahaeli]

I've seen a lot of people wondering about recent changes or proposed changes to LiveJournal's navigation and user interface, and asking why they're necessary. We've talked about our individual goals for some of the changes in the lj_design community, but we haven't talked about why we're working on the project overall, and I wanted to take a minute and

Comments

[filkerdave]

I think the most significant thing you can do with changes is make them opt-in, rather than blithely changing things for current users. If you want to make them the default for new users, fine, but please, don't muck with MY settings just because someone else doesn't like them.

$COOLNEWFEATURE may sound great on paper, but the fact that you ALWAYS get a rash of people screaming at you because you enabled it, turned on, with no way to turn it off...

I mean, seriously. My LJ is for *me* -- yes, you provide a service but I'm paying for that service and I think that entitles me to have a certain amount of say in how my own LJ behaves.

[xoverau]

I admit, I agree with you on this. I helped my mother set up a journal last year. She was unable to post for two weeks when the layout changed and she couldn't find the update link where she was used to looking. During that time a couple of months ago when we were all logged out and had to re-enter our passwords, she spent another frustrated week wondering where her entries had gone. When I was helping her edit something last month, she was confused by having several places on one page (the side bar, the top, and the nav bar) to click for friends, updates, and userinfo. Finally she said she'd just write in a text file on her computer because it was less frustrating.

I wouldn't have called my mother the typical LJ user, but if this post is correct and she is...I think the constant transition and change is going to prove just as discouraging as an inconvenient interface.

[chrismm]

Actually, the idea of opt-in instead of opt-out where-ever possible (recognizing that it's not always possible) sounds like it would address a lot of the issues I'm hearing, too. That does leave you with the task of communicating the new options to folks, and that's clearly part of the bigger problem, because otherwise you wouldn't have people who think the friendslist is all there is to LJ

[pinkpolarity]

At the VERY least, it should be opt-in before opt-out for *paid accounts*. I'd be surprised if very many of those clueless newbies are paid users.

[blktauna]

I think the constant transition and change is going to prove just as discouraging as an inconvenient interface.

Exactly. Especially when the change is unannounced or if it is announced, it's done so in an oscure journal no one knows about.

I think people's surprise and dismay at the navbar is a symptom of the same issue.

[otherdeb]

I'm also for making the changes opt-in rather than opt-out.

[jamesd]

Part of the problem they are trying to fix is people not knowing their way around, so opt-in would be the wrong choice for some changes, because they people they are trying to reach wouldn't know how or where to opt in or even discover the feature.

However, what can be done is to opt in only those who appear not to know whatever it is the feature is trying to teach, and allow opt out by the viewing/using user, not someone else, which was/is the problem with the navbar - overriding the opt out of the user.

[filkerdave]

Opt-in on everything. There's that that news notice when you log in -- if people don't read it, well, tough. I have no pity for people who cen't be bothered to at least read it the first time.

Possibly a one-time bulletin when you log in "We've added $COOLNEWFEATURE! Click here to try it or here to go on to your journal could be coded; I haven't looked at the LJ source but I bet it could be done.

It'd still be annoying, but less annoying than have all that stuff turned on by default.

[bridgetester]

Most people I know stay logged in for months. How would they learn about anything?

[filkerdave]

Posts in news

[blktauna]

although there rarely are any.

[blktauna]

LJ has needed one or two centralized real "news" sources for a long time now.

But that would mean accountability. I don't think that's too big around here.