#17 Radical redesign

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Skype’s new design makes waves around the Internet. Here we look into what are the reasons for redesigning applications and why this can go wrong.

  • Not invented here now in English 🇬🇧
  • The Verge: Everyone seems to hate the new Skype
  • Why go through a redesign:
    • Keep up with times, when platform guidelines change or new design ideas come into fashion
    • Rethink UX to make room for new features and functions
    • Give a face to under the hood updates
  • Why redesigns fail: with redesign there two groups of users that have vastly different interests that are difficult to balance
    • Those who have history with an app and expect to be able to continue leveraging their previous knowledge of the app
    • Those who look at the app with fresh set of eyes and compare it with competitors
  • With Skype Microsoft already backtracked some of the changes
  • Microsoft had already pulled successful redesigns in the past: new ribbon UI in Office 2017