A Community’s Refuge in Usability

Last year I was brought in to do the branding and website design for a new social internet radio type startup called Uvumi, much in the vein of last.fm and virb and dare I say myspace. Something really interesting happened over at the Uvumi headquarters last week as a similar site called The Sixty One launched a dramatic redesign of their site literally overnight, without notice, and with little to any concern of the community’s opinion.

The reaction was pretty extreme as tons of T61 users were outraged and made their refuge Uvumi, where they were met with open arms and a site with similar features and usability in mind. A “tool” for independent artists. The T61 refugees seem extremely pleased with Uvumi, and remarkably emotional in their response.

The dudes over at Uvumi have a great attitude about community and independent artists and how the web plays a role in it. That’s why I got involved in the first place.

We don’t feel possessive about Uvumi, we feel that it belongs to the users that embrace it, to the artists and fans who add value to the community, and to the overall art and music scenes that we hope to enrich with this project. In our eyes, this is your site, and what you think matters, so we want to include everyone in news and discussions about upcoming features and design ideas.

Marshall Stokes

Founder, Uvumi

I found these stats by doing a quick search (#thesixtyone) on twitter. Woa.

This whole thing has got me thinking about usability vs design, and a people-powered community/brand. But the people at Uvumi, in my opinion are doing things the right way, start with a functional, usable design and listen to the feedback of the community and improve and add to the features of the site. It’s something they have done from the start, it’s no surprise the steady flood of T61 ex-pat’s are gushing about their new home.

Nice thoughts about the redesign from Marshall, the founder of Uvumi:

One thing is for sure, T61 has certainly taken a giant leap. Whether that leap is forward or backward, or sideways, is not entirely clear, because it is such a dramatic change from the original design that, really, it’s an entirely new website now. Personally, I don’t like it in terms of usability, but I do think it is quite impressive from a graphic design standpoint. So minimal, so cutting-edge. But is that good? Is it good for fans? Is it good for the music community?

I agree. The T61 design is intriguing and unique. It stands out. It is the anti-myspace, but the redesign is intrusive from a functional standpoint, or at least, it doesn’t function as an online community anymore (which according to the users, was it’s greatest strength). It’s a bold design, but the web has taught us that there has to be a balance between usability and aesthetics, because the user always has other options to hanging out on a site that is confusing. I believe that there is room for bold designs such as the new T61 redesign as long as it’s functional and useful. I am so curious to hear why the folks over at The Sixty One headed in the direction they did.