[gmurphy]

Replacing the Android home buttons with the swipe up gesture. It was demonstrably a very clear usability and efficiency loss, but most people strongly preferred it.

Before we had that latter data I actually argued against attempting it - I figured having a clear usability win vs iPhone would be an area we could capitalize on, and didn't believe we'd be able to execute the swipe system well in the time we had (I'd rather be behind and robust than leading edge and flaky), but doing it was definitely the right call - felt pretty sheepish about that one for a few years. The eng and ux teams that pulled it off were next level.

[pwatsonwailes]

People's actual measured experience, vs people's experience of the experience, are rarely the same things, when they have prior knowledge of one thing, and low knowledge of the alternative. They prefer the thing they know, even when it's worse.

[chrismorgan]

And although you can still choose to have the back/home/menu buttons, more and more apps will misbehave and draw under them, sometimes rendering controls unusable or content nigh-invisible. One year ago no app I had did that. Now it’s up to three.