Let’s imagine you take the subway to work everyday. Let’s say you’ve been using the same entrance for years. One morning you go to the subway entrance and you notice it’s boarded up and you’re forbidden to enter there. As a user of the subway, you’re frustrated and incredibly angry with the transit service for not giving you notice.
Now, let’s change that scenario
Let’s say you go to your entrance of the subway and you see several signs directing you that there’s going to be construction over the next few weeks. The next week you see some caution tape going up. The next week some boards and more signs. Finally, the next week everything is shut down. Your level of frustration is going to be far less and your animosity towards the transit service is going to be much lower.
Similarly in UI/UX redesigns, your approach should be like the second scenario; iterative and deliberate. Don’t let your users be disillusioned by your changes. Make sure, in every step, you’re non-intrusive in the overall experience but focused on improving a select few metrics. This will ensure trust in your user base as well as more productive feedback for testing and future changes.