[Sigia-l] Summarized responses: site redesigns reaction to change/transfer users

[Samantha Bailey]

Just before Thanksgiving I sent a message to the group about the experience
we were having with getting negative feedback to changes on our site and I
was looking for ideas/input/research that folks might have regarding
responding to or preparing for negative reactions to change even when you
have a lot of confidence about the ultimately positive nature of the change.
I've summarized the feedback I got and then included full messages below. My
original message appears at the very bottom.

Summarized ideas:
· The basic summary is: prepare, prepare, prepare.
· It's important to prepare internally for change-work with business
partners so they are not caught off guard by negative reactions and have
customer support ready to both help and reassure customers.
· Consider ways to prepare users for change. One way is by releasing "beta"
versions or previews about a month prior. Another possibility is by
including some kind of tour/demo with the launch (WSJ.com did this when they
did a major site redesign.)

SB comment: I'm fully on board with the idea of preparing internally for
change (and I'm not sure we did enough of that), but I have some skepticism
as to the value of beta releases or guides when you're dealing with
non-functional changes. In the case of the project I was working on, we
changed the design/look and feel and the organization-it wasn't the kind of
thing that lent itself readily to a "beta" version. I think this is a great
topic for some more exploration and would love to see it picked up by some
of the folks who are working on IA classes and/or doing research. A personal
observation that I made in response to evite's redesign was that I was more
troubled when they made a single change to functionality than I was when
they released their redesign, which was definitely more change over-all. I
think that visibly being able to see that the site had changed from the main
page set my expectation that things would be different and eased the
transition. Yet at the same time, I find announcements stating the obvious
to be fairly irritating and I rarely review "we've changed" style marketing
material.

Recommended Reading:
The Change Monster: The Human Forces That Fuel or Foil Corporate
Transformation and Change
by Jeanie Daniel Duck
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0609607715/qid=1039549292/sr=1
-2/ref=sr_1_2/102-0169908-5002518?v=glance&s=books
Darwin's Dangerous Idea: Evolution and the Meaning of Life
by Daniel Clement Dennett
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/068482471X/qid=1039548881/sr=1
-1/ref=sr_1_1/102-0169908-5002518?v=glance&s=books


Complete Responses:

Paula Thornton:
Samantha: One of the things (discipline concepts) I feel is missing from our
practice are some of the concepts evolved (but I don't really feel they've
gotten very far) under the title of Change Management.

You've really got two different things going on in the scenario you
described: the changes being made and the way the changes are
implemented/introduced. You indicated that the changes were 'positive'; but
there is no doubt that the introduction of those changes failed (keep up the
chin). The point is that we fail to recognize the need to approach change
from a marketing perspective.

+ How much lead time was given for the 'introduction' of the changes before
they happened?
+ What 'usability' research was done on the change process itself? (impact
analysis) Were there different (more effective ways) that the change could
have been introduced to accommodate a positive reaction?
+ What were the highest valued components (most vulnerable) involved in the
changes (without this data you can't really be sure that the changes you're
making are 'valued' by the constituents)? Were these the items of focus in
the change marketing?

Cinnamon Melchor:

The only solace I have to offer is the story about eBay. They used to have a
nasty yellow page bgcolor, and they switched it one day to white. Complaint
calls poured in, and they switched it back to yellow -- and then slowly,
gradually, over the next couple of months, faded the yellow to white.

Eddie Gomez:
If I can assume correctly, it seems the sensitivity to "change" (from
web versioning) is amplified for customers who access & modify their
financial data online. As a Charles Schwab online user, I can say that
this interface has remained somewhat consistent for about 3 years now (
a razorfish product).

1. I always sort change types before I communicate with my clients:
visual changes & functionality changes and make sure the client is
clear with my distinction. This means going into the test data archives
and editing some video/multimedia to present my client the differences.

2. Nice enigma...I don't have any quantifiable tricks to study online
UI learning costs, task postive/negative transfers across versions.

3. A good book I read at SI touched on this, a class by George Furnas.
The book is called "Darwin's Dangerous Idea" and it talks about
evolutionary design. Hopefully that can provide some insight for you.

Change friction is a natural consequence of versioning and the best
medicine for the migration is being proactive. This means a usability
plan for a version roll-out strategy that can minimize change reaction
by users. A popular technique with some web sites is giving the user a
head's up on the upcoming version (beta preview) a month or two before
the site goes live.

***
Peter Merholz:
My first thought upon reading your email is, "Not surprising."

People, of course, hate change. And with your website's visitors, who
doubtless return regularly, change is like having someone move the furniture
in their house without their asking.

How to prepare things:

1) Make it clear to the business partners that there will be complaints and
confusion. There *always* is. No change, no matter how positive, is not met
with upset. So simply get everyone braced for a negative response. It
doesn't mean the new site is bad. It just means its different.

2) Roll out new designs first as a beta, where people can click around and
play with it, but still use the existing design if they want. Ease people
into the concept of the new design. Flipping-the-switch on a new design is
disruptive (particularly for people wanting to deal with their money), so
you have to ease them into it.

To answer your questions directly...

> 1) What do you do to prepare your clients or business partners for
negative
> reactions to changes that you've tested and are confident are largely
> positive improvements to a site?

Keep whatever research/findings you have from the design process at hand.
Make it clear that it works better even if folks are upset.

Also, get business partners more involved in the design process. Make them
feel like they partly own the solution, and they will be more likely to
defend it.

> 2) Any recommendations for measuring customer satisfaction around a
> change--clearly if you measure it immediately before and immediately
after,
> you are going to get different data points than 3 months down the line
after
> people are more acclimated to the new site.

Do it Amazon style -- role out changes to a small percentage of your
audience. And make it clear what is happening. There's no shame in
evolving--just be explicit about it.

> 3) Anyone know of any articles or research on this topic?

That's a good question. Research probably wouldn't be helpful, but other
peoples' stories would likely help those in the current situation understand
that it doesn't happen just to them.

My original message:

| -----Original Message-----
| From: Samantha Bailey [mailto:a2slb at earthlink.net]
| Sent: Monday, November 25, 2002 10:18 AM
| To: sigia-l
| Subject: [Sigia-l] site redesigns: transfer users, reactions to change
|
|
| Hi,
|
| We've recently released a site redesign that was extensively
| tested, so we
| went into it with a good understanding of what worked and
| what didn't. Those
| of us on the design side were prepared for the idea that some
| users would
| dislike the change just because it was a change, even if the site was
| working better, and our call centers were prepared for extra
| call volume the
| week after the launch.
|
| I'm not sure that we prepared our business partners as well
| as we might
| have, however, as a number of people were very thrown by the level of
| customer complaints and confusion around the site having changed. It
| retrospectively made us realize that we had experienced this
| phenomenon and
| had anecdotal information but didn't really know of any
| studies or research
| that might help us help our business partners be more
| realistically prepared
| for large-scale change. To that end, I'd like to ask the list
| if you have
| experience in this arena:
|
| 1) What do you do to prepare your clients or business
| partners for negative
| reactions to changes that you've tested and are confident are largely
| positive improvements to a site?
|
| 2) Any recommendations for measuring customer satisfaction around a
| change--clearly if you measure it immediately before and
| immediately after,
| you are going to get different data points than 3 months down
| the line after
| people are more acclimated to the new site.
|
| 3) Anyone know of any articles or research on this topic?
|
| I will summarize all responses I get and send to the list.
|
| Thanks!
|
| Samantha
|




Samantha Bailey
samantha at baileysorts.com | http://baileysorts.com

"Do you know what that trick is? Magicians would call it the redirection.
A theologian would note that it parallels a theme found in all religions:
the paradox of turning away from the goal to achieve the goal."
-Karl Fast