Wikipedia:Interface changes

This is an essay.

It contains the advice or opinions of one or more Wikipedia contributors. This page is not an encyclopedia article, nor is it one of Wikipedia's policies or guidelines, as it has not been thoroughly vetted by the community. Some essays represent widespread norms; others only represent minority viewpoints.

Interface changes annoy people, because people are creatures of habit.^{[citation needed]} That annoyance is usually temporary, because people get used to change, especially when it's a change for the better. In addition, editor churn means that new people joining after the change never saw the old way, and don't need to adapt, so over time there's a demographic trend to acceptance as well.

To minimise pain, any interface change should be one of the following, and may progress through this list:

small enough that nobody notices or complains,
small enough that grumblings don't lead to a "we won't stand for this" snowball of outrage,
opt-in,
opt-in for existing users, opt-out for new users,
easily opt-out for all users,
important enough to impose despite pissing people off.

It's worth observing of course that this list doesn't apply in isolation; it depends on how much prior discussion and testing the interface change had. Given good testing and community collaboration in design for something that's clearly an improvement, even an imposed change that annoys quite a few people will eventually be accepted.

Most importantly, changes that have not been communicated enough are more likely to be considered by someone a "sudden error" or something that was changed without notification or necessary consensus and can therefore changed without consideration, leading to on-wiki wheel wars or other disruptive chain reactions that can (socially) kill even the (technically) best change ever.

Transitions can sometimes be smoothed in various ways, such as by using new interface elements for new features, so people get used to them, and then eventually getting rid of the old interface element for existing features (migrating to the new) some time later, when people are already well used to the new. Other methods include introducing elements as opt-in, then moving to opt-out, before (if necessary) removing the opt-out option.

Some examples

Wikipedia:Notifications ("Echo"), which suddenly abolished the Orange Bar for new usermessages (not having learned from bugzilla:25145, which tried to turn it blue to match the Vector style), although an option was supposed to be provided.
The watchlist formatting change which led to the creation of the Wikipedia:Customizing watchlists page and the removal of the visible formatting, which is used on all other Wikimedia projects, from en.wiki. This change was made at the request of the community, with overwhelming support at a CENT-listed RFC at the Village pump discussion, and then reversed after being implemented.
Introduction of the Vector skin.
Introduction of Monobook skin (2004)
Removal of old skins (2013)

How to cope

Reduce the likelihood that you will be surprised by watching for announcements of upcoming changes at Wikipedia:Village pump (technical) and other forums. Help spread the word so that your friends know what's going on, too.
Remember that most people adapt to smaller changes within a couple of weeks, and to larger ones within a month or two, even if they are initially shocked by a disruptive change or believe that the change was pointless or unnecessary. Complaints received after giving the new system a fair trial are likely to be more thoughtful, reasoned and respected than instantaneous, knee-jerk reactions.
Many interface changes can be manually reversed for your own account. If you can't handle the new version, then check the village pumps to see whether anyone has written a script that will allow you to simulate the old version.

Some examples

How to cope

See also