Hootsuite

I’ve been watching the reaction to Hootsuite’s new social picker with interest. Many power users say it slows them down, and makes their jobs harder. Hootsuite’s official support account has chirpily thanked users for the complaints, but have offered no solution. Maybe that’s because Hootsuite believes users are the problem, rather than its software design choices. Check out this exchange with one user:

Pamela’s response is absolutely correct. I would go a step further and say that Hootsuite’s comment is utterly patronizing. The “fear of change” excuse is something you see trotted out by organizations or management that believe customers are old, stupid, ignorant, and stubborn. It’s often associated with denial that the program or plan itself has faults, and/or hasn’t been communicated well.

Many of the complainers are paying power users who have have explained exactly what’s wrong with the new social picker (slows them down, inefficient, more steps involved, etc.). We have been through many other user interface changes in the past without quaking in our boots or complaining through clenched dentures. I’ve been using Hootsuite for more than 3 years and have been happy with the UX improvements … until now.

So, Hootsuite community managers (or CEO Ryan Holmes), if you happen to read this post:  Please don’t talk down to your customers. Listen to what they have to say, and evaluate it seriously. If not, you’re going to start to find that some of us will dump Hootsuite Pro accounts for tools that offer better functionality — without the attitude.

(Updates at bottom of post) Hootsuite has a new social picker. This is the function that lets users choose which social networks they want to use for a particular message. As a power user, this is a very important feature — I use Hootsuite for general tweets, posts to LinkedIn or Facebook pages, and general promotion of In 30 Minutes guides and other interests. The social picker used to look like this:

Twitter accounts, Facebook pages, and all other social networks that you had hooked up to Hootsuite were visible by default. You could select or deselect at will.

Last week, they changed it to this:

What happened?

Social networks are now hidden in a drop-down menu on the right side of the picker. This makes it far more difficult to select and deselect specific social media accounts — users have to first click the drop-down menu, then select the accounts. For people with lots of accounts, there is scrolling involved.

Why change a user interface element that’s not broken? I asked @hootsuite_help, and got this reply:

@ilamont We wanted to implement new features like pinning social networks. To see how, check out http://t.co/WADDEhmhut. ^TF

— HootSuite Helpers (@HootSuite_Help) June 15, 2013

“Pinning” social networks means setting them up as default choices for Hootsuite. If you click through to their help link, you’ll see that the process is non-intuitive. In Web UX design, “pins” are usually associated with geographic locations, not social networks. I don’t think many users will be able to figure out how to set the defaults on their own, which will lead to lots of frustration.

In addition, Hootsuite power users typically have lots of social network accounts (I have more than 15) and multiple use cases. Default accounts simply don’t work if you are constantly switching between clients, accounts and campaigns.

The new social picker is a step in the wrong direction. This interface tweak delivers no value to me, and in fact makes it much more difficult to use the tool — I either have to constantly click and scroll to select networks, or deselect the defaults. I’ve already found that I’m using my social networks less as a result

One other thing to add: I pay for Hootsuite. The company never told me about the change, or asked for my feedback. This is a bad way to treat customers, and I predict some will fly the coop — I am definitely considering other options.

How are other people reacting? I saw one positive tweet from someone who said she uses the same social network accounts 99% of the time and likes having default accounts. However, most of the other Hootsuite users out there who have publicly commented are clearly frustrated with the new social picker:

@hootsuite_help: Why not return to old profile picker w option to customize – if wanted. Pinning/favoriting make it unworkably slow for me — Mark Beech (@Mark_Beech) June 17, 2013

This pull down menu @Hootsuite has added for selecting account is awful …. slows down the process @HootSuite_Help @invoker — Taylor and Pond (@TaylorPond) June 16, 2013

@HootSuite @hootsuite_help Did you bother to ask your power users before changing the network chooser? The new one is horrendous.

— Jason B. Whitman (@JasonBWhitman) June 16, 2013

@hootsuite_help New picker is badly designed, icons are too small, can’t change the order, non-intuitive to deselect, pls change back

— Miss Jackson (@missjacksoncafe) June 15, 2013

What do you think of Hootsuite’s new social picker? Leave comments below.

Update 1: Go to the Hootsuite feedback forum and let them know you want to revert to the old social picker.

Update 2: Hootsuite takes the low road, blames complaints on “fear of change”