Why don't we change where the clutch, the break and the acceleration pedals are from time to time on cars? Just for fun.
Why don't we switch riding right side and left side of the road? Every once in a while? Or the shape and colours of traffic lights?
Why do piano keyboards keep the same boring interface since decades (7 whites 5 black keys)?
Why do we have books with always the same size and boring indexes, table of matters and introductions?
Why don't we change VAT tax forms every months?
Oh I know, because changes are costly and not needed.
Windows of instance could look like it did in the Windows NT 4.0 days and nobody in business would care. Sure update the icons, tweak the fonts, add features, remove features that are no longer relevant, but don't try to revolutionize the GUI.
I know it sound like I'm advocating not moving forward, but the majority of people really just want to get their work done and to radical changes will slow them down.
True, given time and education they might like newer versions of Windows better, but let's face it, most companies won't do retraining for Windows and Office.
I think cars make for a good analogy here. People get a new car, and they have to relearn some things. Not the large things, like how to drive, or the rules of the road, but where the auxiliary controls are, the quirks in how it drives, how sensitive the steering is, where cruise control is and how it's activated, etc. There's a short acclimatization period while you get comfortable and explore or research how to do the things that are different that are important to you.
You get a new version of windows, you may need to learn a few slightly different ways of accomplishing something, but the core experience is the same. You have icons, windows, files with copy/move//delete operations, etc. There's a short acclimatization period while you get comfortable or research how to do the things that are different that are important to you.
Do people complain as much about new cars? Not nearly. They've come to see that these changes are a small price to pay for the advantages we get as the state of the art advances (anti-lock brakes, air-bags, heated seats, parking assist, computer driving...).
I'm reading Robert J. Gordon's The Rise and Fall of American Growth, which looks at trends and patterns over the period since the Civil War (1870), most especially what he terms "the special century" (1870-1970), and also examined as three periods, 1870 - 1920, 1920 - 1970, and 1970 - present (almost even 50 year intervals).
I've just read his chapter on cars, and what equipment wasn't on the original Ford Model T: speedometer, fuel guage, headlights, a top, bumpers, electric starter (let alone automatic choke, spark adjustment, or transmission), etc. They weren't really fully settled until about 1940.
Computers still seem to be working these things out.
- File storage and manipulation
- File search
- Networking
- Application installation, management and (local) discovery
- Application running and managing multiple running applications at once
- Regular system security and bugfix updates
I think most the complains at this point are on very small changes to those things, such as their appearance or where to find them. Fro example, the whole windows 8 start menu problem. That's purely a matter of different display and slightly different functionality of application discovery.
Computers are problematic in large part because of the tremendous range of environments and uses:
1. Domain experts with decades of experience and highly-tuned, fixed-location, immersed interfaces. Old-school workstations. Heavy on CLI or usually really idiosyncratic GUIs.
2. More casual office users. This is your general file/task approach. I still think that could be improved, though the question is how. Having to consciously consider applications is IMO an error.
3. Mobile. Suboptimal conditions for viewing, entering, reading, etc. Some of the audio input (Amazon Echo, Google Now, Apple Siri) systems may address parts of this.
4. Appliances / controls: anything from digital clocks to DVD/BluRay players to microwaves and kitchen stoves and thermostats and washing machines. LED / LCD displays, anything from 2+ buttons to numeric keypads to dials to full keyboards. Incredible inconsistency across and even _within_ applications.
Of three sets of digital kitchen timers:
One blinks the minutes:seconds colon to indicate it is counting down, the other to indicate it isn't.
A microwave control allows use of either the timer or the microwave, but not both simultaneously.
Several chime repeatedly, others only once (and woe be you if you happen to miss the timer).
None have a count-up feature telling you _when the timer went off_.
I prefer a wind-up dial timer. Simple interface, and it's obvious when and how it's working. The bell is loud enough to hear rooms away.
The linked forum thread seems to have a large quantity of people complaining about the later.
But other times they do UX testing and over time discover that B is better than A. But throw that in front of a new user and it's initially harder and therefor frustrating.
If the driving paradigm is "if it ain't broke, don't fix it," that's going to lead to a stagnant product. Because sometimes it ain't broke, but it also ain't ideal and people are just used to it.
So when there are fundamental changes to UX beyond color scheme - and perhaps even including - I think there needs to be detailed communication as to why and why it's better now.
People don't, on the whole, complain about things that genuinely make their lives better.