It's true - Don Dodge figured out why people's reaction to the USA Today Social Network experiment has drawn more negative than positive comments. It's actually not what USA Today did (which was a good idea - making the newspaper a social network) it's the way it was done - all at once.
If you going to make major changes to the site- and add new features - don't change the appearance of your site at the same time you add new features. According to Dodge:
"…My Take? I like the social features such as the ability to comment on any news story, the voting for good stories, seeing stories in order of ranking, most commented, etc. They also have introduced AJAX into the design so the page is more responsive to changes, mouse rollovers, photo selections, etc. The old layout and page design was better in my opinion. So, I would have introduced the new features, but applied them to the existing layout and design. I think the 92% of readers with negative comments were reacting to the layout changes, not the feature enhancements."
I think it's tempting to roll out changes all at once - it's better to consider the audience first, give them a chance to adjust.
