A note to LinkedIn

Dear LinkedIn

You have been a great ally for a few years in growing my professional brand and network. I have always appreciated most of the advancements you have made like app updates. However, the latest change w.r.t. the website getting an app-like feel has impacted the user experience significantly. The site is painstakingly slow and a lot of basic functionality is either not discoverable at all or extremely hard to find. Hope this would be resolved soon.

Regards A loyal user

Notes to self

Learnings for a consumer product from this latest change:

1. User experience is paramount
2. Ensure the strengths & fundamentals of your products are not impacted when making a change
3. User notification and education is important so that users are aware of the change and know how to deal with it so that there is Business continuity for them
4. A/B testing & user feedback is critical
5. If you really have to push the change because of certain business requirements, then provide users a way to access the old product at least for a limited time-frame. This will also provide accurate data on how the change is being perceived and adopted and help in optimising the product.

These will go a long in ensuring customer loyalty as users always appreciate that the company cares about them.