“Users don’t hate change. They hate you.”

Users hate change that doesn’t make things better, but makes everything have to be relearned.

In fact, users don’t like change that might improve their lives if they don’t perceive the value of that change.

In Eager Sellers and Stoney Buyers, John Gournville points out that getting consumers to adopt a new product is incredibly difficult

“First, people evaluate the attractiveness of an alternative based not on its objective, or actual, value but on its subjective, or perceived, value. Second, consumers evaluate new products or investments relative to a reference point, usually the products they already own or consume. Third, people view any improvements relative to this reference point as gains and treat all shortcomings as losses.

Fourth, and most important, losses have a far greater impact on people than similarly sized gains, a phenomenon that Kahneman and Tversky called “loss aversion.” For instance, studies show that most people will not accept a bet in which there is a 50% chance of winning $100 and a 50% chance of losing $100.The gains from the wager must outweigh the losses by a factor of between two and three before most people find such a bet attractive.”

So when a big change comes, the end users is focused on what they have lost: productivity, comfort, familiarity. And the users weight that loss as three times more important that any gain that company professes to offer. The exact same math applies to redesigns: you moved my cheese and I am not happy about it.

Add to that sense of loss a loss of happiness. Research has long shown that the #1 predictor of happiness is a sense of control. Angus Campell says in Psychology Today

“Having a strong sense of controlling one’s life is a more dependable predictor of positive feelings of well-being than any of the objective conditions of life we have considered,”

Now let’s imagine users of a product. They know where everything is. They know how it works. And one day you change it. And because you think you are Apple (or because you are Apple) you change how the product looks and works without one word of explanation of where you put key features like search or the navigation system. And suddenly the users have lost their sense of control and their happiness along with it without one word from you on how their life is about to get much, much better. You’ve basically snuck into their house and rearranged their living room furniture to a more pleasing (to you) configuration. Without permission or warning.

http://www.eleganthack.com/user-dont-hate-change-they-hate-you/