It’s 2022…meaning it’s been almost 3 years since I started my work in product management.

When I started applying to roles, one of the first pieces of advice I received from a colleague was to get comfortable doing user research. I was told (rightfully so) that 20 minutes with actual target users can sometimes be as valuable as a whole market report or analytics tool. As I started reading more on product management industry standards and frameworks, I found that virtually every one of them drove home it was vital to test with users, preferably early and often. So how do so many product teams end up getting user research wrong, or skipping it altogether?

The case of the Safari search bar

A few weeks ago I saw that my sister-in-law shared a Facebook post that was a little atypical of her–a photo with information on how to reverse a new setting in Safari that was released with iOS 15. She was referring to Apple’s decision to move Safari’s search bar from the top of the browser to the bottom and included a caption “For anyone else that was being driven mad by this” (emphasis mine).

Most of my sister-in-law’s social media posts are photos of her kids and memories with friends and family. My first thought was “Wow…for her to post something like this, she must really care about it!” I took a look at the comments on her post. Among them were:

• “That was really bugging me!”
• “was driving me nuts!”
• “I felt myself calm instantly after it was back on top!”

The bigger picture

The original post my sister-in-law shared had over 40,000 shares and 2,400 positive reactions. And the Facebook user who created the post was far from the only person to be annoyed with Safari’s recent change. I performed a quick Google search and found “fix search bar on bottom” was common enough to be an autofill suggestion.

Many new outlets and blogs published instructions on how to move the search bar in Safari back to its familiar position at the top of the screen. These included non-tech websites like CNBC, Mashable, Yahoo, and Elite Daily. One of the several YouTube videos on the topic had 58,000 views (at the time of writing). Many users seemed downright maddened by the UI change, just like my sister-in-law.

When analytics don’t tell the whole story

Obviously, iOS 15 isn’t the first time Apple has come under scrutiny for changes that are less than friendly to the user. I won’t be the first person to observe that their devices don’t seem built to last through iOS version after version. iPhone users might recall that Apple agreed to pay up to $500 million to settle a class action lawsuit regarding the battery life of their devices, which started to perform worse and worse as the phone aged but couldn’t be replaced without a hefty fee.

The reason I find search bar-gate to be so interesting is that I can see the change making perfect sense if you don’t take into account input from a cross-section of users.

Today’s iPhones have screens between 5.4 and 6.7 inches in height. That’s a far cry from the original iPhone’s 4.5 inches in 2008, when you could argue that mobile internet browsing was in its infancy. I have fairly small hands for an adult and can tell you on my SE2 (one of the 5.4″ models) that it’s often a tad annoying to reach from the bottom to the top of my device screen when web browsing.

I would bet that heatmaps at Apple show a gradual shift to more user activity being completed near the bottom of the screen, perhaps in correlation with the larger size of recent devices. For almost a decade, iOS users have been able to see their “most used” or “favorite” apps at the bottom of the device screen for easy access.

With this in mind, it seems as though having a search bar on the bottom of the screen where it is closer to users’ fingers would be a slam dunk for an improved user experience. Clearly, though, many users feel otherwise, and care enough to post about this change over photos of their kids!

Silicon Valley-esque testing?

My guess is that if the Safari team did test the changes for iOS 15 with users, something in their testing methods was seriously awry. It is rare that I’ve seen, either personally or professionally, such vehement opposition to a proposed UI change.

In thinking about how the process might have gone better, I’m reminded a bit of the HBO sitcom Silicon Valley. In the show, the founding team of startup Pied Piper finds itself in dire commercial straights after releasing a product with groundbreaking middle-out compression technology, but limited application to the everyday user. Pied Piper’s founder is a brilliant engineer who is surprised when his product is unsuccessful. Everyone he knew thought that the software was amazing and would be an instant success! Well, almost everyone. There is a pivotal scene where the founder’s love interest/ venture capitalist (it’s complicated?) admits she just did not understand what the product was for. That’s when the team run their first focus group with non-techies (far too late in the process!) and finds out that the average, tech unsavvy user is completely uninterested in the application.

Safari’s search bar might seen innovative and cool to the tech nerd, but for the rest of us it’s just too far of a leap.

So what?

If you’re like Apple, the clear US market leader in your field, you might be tempted to not care about the average Joe’s user experience. With the virtual monopoly Apple holds it seems like a bit of a leap that they might lose significant revenue over an unfavorable UI change. Some might even argue that it’s the job (pun not intended) of Apple to usher us in to the next generation of mobile browsing experience.

But Samsung, not Apple, is the smartphone market leader outside of the US, and while Apple’s share varies from quarter to quarter they are not immune market challenges like those brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic. Apple are famously expensive but have always given the value proposition of having THE top of the line smartphone. If that’s not the case, why do we pay so much for the iPhone? I’m of the firm opinion that if you don’t put consistent effort into making sure you provide the best user experience in the room (or at least a comparable experience) you might become the next MySpace.

Arguably–and yes, I’m revealing my age here–the social networking site MySpace offered a better user experience than Facebook for tech savvy folks. I distinctly remember being able to write actual HTML code for my MySpace page–you could write a blog, customize the colors and font layout, and even add a music player(!) on your page.

As we know today, ultimately Facebook overtook MySpace, and I can’t help but thinking that the lower technical barrier to entry and user friendliness was at least part of Facebook’s victory. Being on the top today is one thing, but staying on top? You need to listen to your users to do that.