26

Ask Layervault: What about Progressive Reduction?

almost 9 years ago from , UX Designer

Back in February Layervault wrote two blog posts about Progressive Reduction, a technique to simplify the app's interface as users got used to it.

It seemed pretty awesome back then, so I'd like to know more about how it's being implemented and what did/didn't work.

1) Are you still using it? If so, what are the metrics in place to determine its effectiveness? Any interesting feedback?

2) Does the system takes into account users that stop using Layervault for a long time and progressively expands the interface over long periods of inactivity?

3) To DN readers: Have you ever tried something similar in your company, and how did it go?

Lastly, I'm not a Layervault user, so sorry if I missed something obvious!

Links to the original posts:

http://layervault.tumblr.com/post/42361566927/progressive-reductionhttp://layervault.tumblr.com/post/42442865260/implementing-progressive-reduction

8 comments

  • Kelly SuttonKelly Sutton, almost 9 years ago

    Sorry about the delayed response on this one. The short answer is: we don't currently employ the techniques of Progressive Reduction in the current LayerVault interface.

    That doesn't mean we don't still think it can be extremely useful, though. We essentially had to throw the pieces of Progressive Reduction out when adapting our interface to customer feedback. We have not had the time to re-integrate it back into the interface. There's not a framework built up around it, so every implementation at this point has to be ad-hoc. Perhaps one day we'll attempt to codify it into a library. We found the code for Progressive Reduction not to be the hard part, but rather the maintenance.

    In regard to (2): the original blog post mentioned the idea of "experience decay." After a long time not using the service, the interface would slowly revert to its original state.

    3 points
    • Daniel FoscoDaniel Fosco, almost 9 years ago

      Thanks for the feedback, Kelly!

      Makes sense that it would be of difficult maintenance, you guys probably don't have a lot of time in your hands.

      0 points
  • Surjith S MSurjith S M, almost 9 years ago

    No official reply from Layervault team yet? I'm also interested to know about the stats.

    1 point
  • Jeff SmithJeff Smith, almost 9 years ago

    I love this idea, just curious how teams manage the complexity of implementing this in a production environment. Seems very logical and elegant though!

    1 point
  • Luke MurphyLuke Murphy, almost 9 years ago

    Very interested as well! I've been talking about it in one of my talks and had this question the last time I spoke about it... Would love to hear whether it was a success or failure and the stats/learning a behind it.

    0 points
  • Joe VillanuevaJoe Villanueva, almost 9 years ago

    Very interested as well. As the team I'm working with talks about it, there seems to be a lot of overhead in the strategy, implementation, and management of this concept.

    0 points
  • Dalton WoodsDalton Woods, almost 9 years ago

    I too am very curious about the results of "progressive reduction" for LayerVault.

    0 points
  • John ChouraJohn Choura, almost 9 years ago

    I'm curious about this as well. Seemed like a really cool idea when they originally blogged about.

    0 points