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I had a very similar reaction to the most recent facebook re-design - I felt that bottom line, I was able to view much less content/information at a given time. I never understood why facebook would want to do such a thing - to increase clicks, perhaps.

(Note, I only skimmed the article)

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indeed this design makes me appreciate the current one a lot more. I'm sure there is a term for this 'not liking the new design even if its better' something to do with resistance to change.

Just a short summary:

In Marketing and Strategic Management this effect is called the 9X effect. It stipulates, that you underestimate the power/usefulness of a new product 3 times and overestimate the old product 3 times as well. This means a new product has to be ten times better to be successful.

As you mentioned, underlying to this whole thing is, that most people are change averse and therefore resisting it. Only around five percent of people truly like change (early adopters). All the others have to be forced to use something new.

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