Over the next several days, I got hundreds of messages along the lines of “What did you do?!” “You fucking idiot!” “Change it back immediately!” “My eyes are bleeding demon tears.” Etc.

The ever-popular Paris Lemon or MG Siegler in the technology sector of human interest wrote just that in direct response after redesigning his Tumblr. You see what went from a typical blog format with one column of content and the other column being a sidebar morphed into a grid-style design. 

MG also brings the words of Bryce Roberts into picture frame as Roberts wrote about a similar thing that has happened after Bitly was recently redesigned.  

MG says the following:

They recently underwent some major changes to the product and everyone seems to hate them. Maybe Bitly made some mistakes with the redesign/relaunch or maybe they didn’t. Obviously, they have the data to know for sure. But again, it’s not like they did it just to mess with people. They clearly had a goal in mind with the change. And you have to applaud them going for it, rather than being complacent.

Aversion to change is human nature. Most people take comfort in familiarity. But stagnation is the ultimate killer. It’s excruciatingly slow, but insanely lethal. Living to die another day isn’t really living.

Without change, the web, like the world, would be a very boring place.

Change is inevitable. We redesign to adjust for this change and live on. A redesign in this case is helping out more than hindering. The only hinderence are the close minded designers and the people who just like to complain for the sake of complaining. Now, sure there will be some that care about the product or service and demand adjustments. 

Redesigns can be drastic or take form in babysteps. In these cases, just like with the new Foursquare app, a drastic redesign took place. Sometimes babysteps aren’t enough. Can we all agree on one thing?

Everything at some point in time needs redesigned. The timing and what is done is the core to this repugnance.

Remember the redesigns of 37signals?

By the way, repugnance is a new word for me. Thank you thesaurus for finding a word that starts with an “r” for assimilation. I apologize if it doesn’t quite work. 

• 06/08/12