An observed phenomenon: when a product or service does a major redesign, long-time users will freak out. But if the design is better than the previous one, they will eventually get over it. I’ve watched it happen recently with the New York Times redesign.
I’m calling this phenomenon redesign reorientation.
They eventually get over it, except at Tribe, which has suffered from a horrendous redesign, and the users haven’t gotten over it and are instead batsh!e crazy mad (which they should be).
Why ‘reorientation’, though? Other than reorienting for 1028×764, it’s not like many of these redesigns rethink about their products, their users or how the users *use* the product. Sticking a blogging feature and a RSS feed isn’t a redesign or a reorientation – it’s just keeping up with the times. Reorienting – or reengineering – a product involves much more – it should
“Experience optimization” works for me.
I’m not talking about the redesign of the site itself. I’m talking about the effect of the redesign on users. Perhaps I was unclear.
On second read, you’re bang on – “redesign reorientation” is a good way of putting it.