Psychologists have investigated cognitive distortions that cause users to love older versions of the interface. This was reported by the press service of the National Research University Higher School of Economics.
In 2010, the administration of the social network VKontakte (now VK), headed by Pavel Durov, caused a scandal. On user pages, the then familiar wall, where friends (or the person himself) can write a public message or leave graffiti, has been replaced by a microblog. It was similar to Twitter, with a hard character limit and automatically creating a post from each new status. This decision caused massive online protests of VKontakte users, people demanded the return of the old interface, put avatars with this demand, insulted Durov and, in some cases, made grotesque offers: for example, one day do not enter the social network, so you will lose your income and that the protesters will will fulfill their demands. As a result, the management partially rolled back the changes, and the functionality of the original wall remained available even after Durov left VKontakte for many years.
Experts from the HSE Lab for the Cognitive Psychology of Digital Interface Users cite this case as a prime example of the “duckling syndrome” that pushes people to resist changes to the user interfaces of websites and apps. The term is not an accepted concept in psychology, but scientists decided to compare it with mechanisms known and explained in science: the familiarity effect, the possession effect, and the deviation towards the status quo.
Among cognitive distortions, “duckling syndrome” is similar to the familiarity effect, in which a person prefers a familiar object to an unfamiliar object. However, “duckling syndrome” focuses on the process of interacting with the interface, not the interface itself. The user first evaluates the suitability of performing tasks using this application or site. If the user had not interacted with the application or site, it would not have reacted so actively to changes.
“Duckling syndrome” is also similar to the possessive effect, when a person values objects they already have more than they can get. However, it is difficult to explain the preference of the old interface over the new one with the effect of ownership because the interface is not a thing and cannot be owned. “Duck Syndrome” is associated with the importance of first interaction with the interface rather than having it.
When deviating towards the status quo, when one wants things not to change. This deterioration is more like “duckling syndrome” than any other effect, but still does not cover all aspects of the described phenomenon, primarily those of the digital environment.
As a result, the researchers advise developers to introduce changes gradually, even if they were developed in a single “package”.
Source: Gazeta
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