Resistance to change

[Kay]

I've been used to phpBB until more recently when I've been having a go with vBulletin.

It's obvious that VB has a lot more functionality and is "better" in many ways. I had a vague thought that I might get it for my place but we had a somewhat turbulent time with a revamp (still on phpBB) we did a couple of years ago and it drove our users nuts.

In many ways I think it's better just to carry on with our clunky old thing - it's what they're all used to.

As a site visitor (not just forums) I think I'm also quite resistant to change. As a member of several affiliate networks, it makes me crazy to go there and suddenly find that the user interface has completely changed. Oh, yippee, another new thing to learn.

And I bought a new camera recently but none of my existing software worked with it. I didn't mind buying the upgraded software. But that's yet another new thing to learn.

It sometimes seems as though everything I learned yesterday is obsolete today. It's very hard to keep up. I know it's all "progress" but the rate of change is getting too fast for me.

I think it's maybe better not to thrust radical change on your customers/visitors/users.

How do you find the balance between progress and people being unhappy about change.

[circa75]

Kay, don't hold back from moving your site/brand forward because you're afraid users might not instantly love the updates. The whole internet is a work in progress – what we perceive as normal today is in constant flux, increasingly so with mobile/tablet users gaining ground and desktop browsers becoming more and more capable.

A few suggestions:

• You might consider consulting a core of your user-base. Ask them to answer some questions (offering swag helps ) on your site usability, what they like/don't like, what features they'd like to see implemented, do they want changes or would they prefer things left alone etc.
  
• This can work well and give you some valuable opinions - not just yours/your teams. But don't go too in depth or technical – most people/eyeballs don't spend all day online and have very little knowledge.
  
• Sometimes it works better to introduce gradual changes/updates, rather than the big daddy site-wide update which can sometimes leave users a bit alienated.

But essentially, if it's a genuinely improved online experience - people will adapt and love it for the better, in time.

[Clinton]

It's obvious that VB has a lot more functionality and is "better" in many ways. I had a vague thought that I might get it for my place but we had a somewhat turbulent time with a revamp (still on phpBB) we did a couple of years ago and it drove our users nuts.

It's easy when you know how to convert. I don't.

A very nice, trustworthy chap converted one large board for me from phpBB to vB. I think he charged $30 for the whole backup, conversion and testing process! 'Twas money well spent.

The regular site visitor should see have no difficulty doing his usual tasks - typing and clicking the post button.

[Kay]

Oh yeah. I've never had any problems with using VB.

I wasn't meaning to go into specifics about my place, it was more a case of in general the users didn't like the changes when we revamped to a "better" version of phpBB. They didn't know where to find things because the layout was a bit different. There was increased functionality but they often didn't know what it was for or how to use it. Mostly they wanted their old place back. To be fair to them, a lot of the new bells and whistles didn't seem to work properly. But I'll say no more about that, other than that Dave has since spent a lot of time removing some of the 'improvements'.

In more general terms, I was just saying that it's difficult to keep up with all the new changes and maybe a lot of people are happy with doing things the old way.

I'm sure that much of it depends on your audience. A place like EP, for example, has a lot of very web savvy people many of whom earn their living online but other places don't usually have the same type of audience. They have info seekers or people wanting to socialise, or maybe people looking to buy a specific product.

And then, take the case of my new camera, I'm absolutely delighted with the camera (Canon 60D) but now I'm back at square one having to learn how to process the photos. C'mon guys. I can't be the only person in the world (or on the EP forum) to be having difficulties in keeping up with change as fast as it happens these days.

[Andy]

Gee Kay... did you even LOOK at my Yahoo thread? :-)

I hate change. This is part of my nature. Yes, change happens all the time but for a lot of things I get used to doing things a certain way, it works, so why change?

Circa75 offered some great ideas on going about changing things with an interactive audience. Such inclusion helps folks "take ownership" of the changes and can play an important role.

Also, we are often surprised at how folks respond. All too often, things I thought would be important are not, while others I thought trivial are deemed very significant.

Andy