20 ms·

Reddit’s Redesign

246 points by jklp 9y ago

taspeotis 9y ago
I assume there's some irony in this URL ending with ?mbid=synd_digg
- jwilk 9y ago
  Can we get this tracking garbage removed from the URL?
gcb0 9y ago
paid puff piece. tl;dr: they made reddit look like Facebook/instagram feed (which every unofficial app already accomplished)
- Theizestooke 9y ago
  Advance Publications is a majority shareholder in reddit, the same company that owns Conde Nast, who in turn publish Wired.
  - zeckalpha 9y ago
    This should be mentioned on the page, but isn’t for some reason. I stopped reading.
  - logicallee 9y ago
    I bet it's just an oversight (given Wired's status - it's pretty serious media). I just dropped them a note.
- cookiecaper 9y ago
  FWIW the Android app "reddit is fun" hasn't really "feedified" reddit. It's my old standby. Much better than the ones that try to gussy things up.
shiado 9y ago
I like "Dystopian Craigslist", it is nice and fast and simple.
grandpoobah 9y ago
Remember when Digg failed to address long standing issues and instead redesigned the site to be more like Twitter? Prediction: The redesign is the straw that will break the Snoo's back.
- newsbinator 9y ago
  What's the new Reddit? I'd like to get on that.
  - winslow 9y ago
    Voat.com has been around for a while. They made a decent push during some reddit drama ~2 years ago. However, looking through voat 'subverses' aka subreddits they look pretty dead for the counterparts that I visit on reddit ex: www.reddit.com/r/homebrewing vs www.voat.com/v/homebrewing and www.reddit.com/r/unrealengine vs www.voat.com/v/unrealengine Their 'HOT' ordering makes the site look dead where they should probably take into account newer stories as everything in the 'HOT' ranking is years old (except for heavier trafficked subverses)
    - newsbinator 9y ago
      I noticed that a surprisingly large number of comments on Voat were anti-semitic and/or racist. Totally out of context, I mean. You might expect hate speech on political subreddits/subverses, but on Voat these were just out of the blue, and numerous.
      - robin_reala 9y ago
        It’s not surprising given the context in which it was started.
      - sterlind 9y ago
        Voat's userbase consists of the members and communities who were banned by Reddit's hate speech policy. Effectively, Voat is Reddit's "recycle bin." Judging from its content, I think the admins made the right call..
IIAOPSW 9y ago
Why do we care so much about design? Reddits success in spite of completely eschewing designers should prove design is over valued. So to does Craigslist. Japanese websites are proof by example that this is strictly a cultural phenomena. Why does Western society seem to value form over function so much? How much is "good design" codeword for dumbing the site down as much as possible and making it shiny enough for people who get distracted by car keys? Reddit doesn't exactly have the learning curve of a command line tool or a rocket plane. Maybe I'm elitist, but if you can't understand reddit as it is maybe you're an idiot? Call me an old man waving around my cane, but I say to hell with the redesign. Give me my plain old links in their plain old default blue underline and my mod-hacked-together css+bots. The internet need not anymore "progress for the sake of progress".
- chi3 9y ago
  Most people will understand reddit if they give it a chance. Problem is that they're less likely to do so if they find the design and UX unintuitive. I know I disliked reddit's design when I saw it the first time, and I've spoken to several people who never got into reddit because they disliked the design.
  - disiplus 9y ago
    i would say that was the feature.
    - agumonkey 9y ago
      there was a similar discussion in emacs land, people were afraid they'd lose users, and to me .. that was perfectly fine. Those who stick to emacs in the spite of all the seemingly looking defects are users that really like it. Distorting something for market share like mentality is not good, it lowers entry but low entry means easy exit. Not worth it IMO. (plus in emacs, case, unless some large effort, no way a newcomer, even tech saavy, won't suffer, it's just too large)
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
Bukhmanizer 9y ago
Like every redesign, I'm sure that people are going to be angry about it no matter how it looks. I'm surprised that no one has mentioned it, but really the make or break of this new reddit will be speed. The one thing that I remember noticing about the site is how much faster it was than the comparable time wasting sites (Facebook, Stumbleupon, etc). More speed, more addictiveness.
dawnerd 9y ago
I think reddit has bigger issues than the look of their site. I stopped using it once all the hate subreddits started growing. Even the smaller more niche subreddits I frequented turned into meme filled echo chambers. What really did it in for me was just how much sponsored content made the homepage that wasn't labeled as such. They also banned me from reddit gifts for pointing out their first sponsored exchange (before they said it was sponsored, they tried acting like it was "fan service").
- dijit 9y ago
  Funnily enough: Reddit started declining for me around the time they started banning "hate" subreddits but leaving others in place (r/shitredditsays for example). It felt like the curators of the site really had some kind of agenda to push, and it really turned me off of using it as a news aggregator platform. (I say this as a person who has never been a member of any of the banned subreddits)
  - andromedaworld 9y ago
    Agree. Censorship beyond a sub's mods is largely uncalled for. Sometimes (fewer times than is the case now), banning of some subs could be necessary. I believe that subs are isolated enough that if you don't want to engage with any particular sub's content you wouldn't have to. Otherwise the whole thing becomes somewhat skewed towards a certain set of opinions and could even be deemed to be totalitarian.
    - mynameisvlad 9y ago
      > I believe that subs are isolated enough that if you don't want to engage with any particular sub's content you wouldn't have to. Otherwise the whole thing becomes somewhat skewed towards a certain set of opinions and could even be deemed to be totalitarian. But that's the thing, they are in theory, but in practice, you see subreddits leaking into others. Even with strict no-brigading rules, it's too easy to click on a link from /r/subredditdrama, for instance, and then start participating. And sometimes people with the same opinion just go to other subreddits to antagonize/troll people; you see this more with the more extremely-sided subreddits.
onli 9y ago
I think a big issue with the new design is the trust issue I/people have that stem from Reddit's other design efforts. Take the mobile website. It looks a lot nicer than the desktop site, but is completely unuseable on a lower end (but current) android device - because instead of showing content immediately it does some javascript client rendering and shows some loading screen, and that regularly takes 10-20 seconds on bigger comment threads. At the same time there is still i.reddit.com, an ugly mobile site seemingly from way back when sites started to make dedicated iPhone-targeting mobile variants, and that one is as fast as a site can be. Actually usable. On mobile, if you visit the reddit site, they push a "use the app"-banner in your face. Every goddamn time. When they redesigned the profiles recently there was a lot of pushback. I did not necessarily agree with that, I thought and think the new profile sites are fine in general. But what definitely was an issue was the performance. Again some javascript client rendering leading to loading indicators, even on the desktop. They improved loading times after that, but still. So one big point of the new design is not actually "how will it look", but whether they will get the functionality/UX right. HN does, without client side rendering and redesigns...
- josteink 9y ago
  > When they redesigned the profiles recently there was a lot of pushback. There was massive amounts of pushback. Until the moderators started deleting posts, almost half the posts in the beta-subreddit was complaining about them, asking them to be rolled back. But did they listen to their users? No. They actively censored and silenced people who were complaining. That tells us that this new "redesign" is not for the users. It's for someone else.
  - trophycase 9y ago
    Enjoy this sleek new UI so we can embed video ads in between content!
    - flukus 9y ago
      And then they'll shut off the API to third party apps that actually make the site usable on mobile.
pygy_ 9y ago
I tried the redesign for a couple of hours and bailed out. I don't care about the looks, but there are two changes that are egregious for me regarding UX: 1) They took out the subreddit ribbon at the top where you can quickly switch between the communities you subscribe to. It's been replaced by a hamburger menu that takes ages to show up, and then you have to scroll (and they are sorted alphabetically, not by popularity). 2) In the main subreddit view, the titles now link to the comments rather than the articles, you have to pixel-hunt the actual link, which is much smaller. I suppose they do this to keep users on site, but I dislike the change. Edit: also, infinite scroll! As if Reddit wasn't sufficiently addictive as it is :-(
- crowbahr 9y ago
  Infinite scroll has been a thing for a while in RES. The removal of the quick link bar is an egregious sin though.
- bby 9y ago
  when I change back, next time I come back to reddit it shows the new design... how do I get the old design permanently?
  - pygy_ 9y ago
    No idea. I opted in through the beta options and disabled it from there as well (at the bottom of the preference screen). I still have the beta option enabled though.
dmitriid 9y ago
Does that redesign still shoves reddit mobile app down your throat and degrades mobile experience? (Judging by the fact that mobile isn't mentioned anywhere in the article, I'd say yes)
- dingo_bat 9y ago
  Just use one of the various excellent third-party apps: https://play.google.com/store/apps/collection/search_results_cluster_apps?clp=ggEICgZyZWRkaXQ%3D:S:ANO1ljL4qEo https://play.google.com/store/apps/collection/search_results... (ignore the first result)
  - dmitriid 9y ago
    I don't want to use reddit's own app, why would I use a third-party app? I want a proper unhindered mobile web experience :)
    - dingo_bat 9y ago
      > I don't want to use reddit's own app, why would I use a third-party app? Because the third party apps are much better that the official one, in all metrics. If you have a specific grievance against the official app, there are overwhelming chances that you won't face the same issue in a 3rd party app.
      - dmitriid 9y ago
        I think you've missed the point completely. Twice. :) There's exactly zero reason for a text-and-images-and-comments site to have an "official app", or a plethora of "third-party apps that are better than the original". A mobile site would be perfectly fine. However, since there's zero incentive for anyone to use those apps, instead of improving (or at least keeping) the mobile experience Reddit actively degrades it. Hence the entirely unnecessary apps. I currently have next-to-zero incentive to even click on links to Reddit, and the requirement to have an app just for that will bring that incentive to exactly zero. And it looks like their redesign had zero intention to improve mobile experience.
dingo_bat 9y ago
Ironic that a page that looks like this[0] on a 24" monitor is commenting on design. [0] https://imgur.com/a/nTdxg https://imgur.com/a/nTdxg
- josteink 9y ago
  Coincidentally earlier today, from a distance, I saw a colleague browse that very article (without seeing what it was about), and the white on cyan header-bar immediately reminded me of the good, old X11 window-manager CDE[0][1]. And it made me feel really nostalgic. I actually wanted to, just for one day, switch my laptop over to it. I bet it would have been blazingly fast. But alas, Ubuntu (and nobody else) seems to ship it any more. Seeing how building and running it from source required me to put some system-services into a insecure configuration, I reluctantly put the project away. I guess it comes off as no surprise that I on overall hate the reddit redesign and consider it a net negative change w.r.t. usability. I generally dislike how "modern" design things they make things better by taking away options and removing features. The "old" reddit gave you full overview of what was going on with all your activity in exactly 2 clicks. Super neat. Super efficient. The new ... I don't even know. I'm guessing much more than 10. And it involves scrolling and modal dialogues too. Fuck it. May the old layout remain an option for as long as I keep bother using the site. [0] https://a.fsdn.com/con/app/proj/cdesktopenv/screenshots/CDE-3.png/1 https://a.fsdn.com/con/app/proj/cdesktopenv/screenshots/CDE-... [1] https://sourceforge.net/projects/cdesktopenv/ https://sourceforge.net/projects/cdesktopenv/
  - joveian 9y ago
    If you want a fast window manager try ratpoison (similar idea to GNU screen), which is widely available. It is really nice to have a window manager that actually manages your windows. If you use GNU screen (or, I assume but have never used, tmux) you can have two terminals sharing the same session for split screen use.
    - josteink 9y ago
      For those needs I've used i3[0] (and lately sway[1]), which both are really nice tiling WMs. Although sometimes, just sometimes... Having manually tweakable windows and a more complete "desktop environment" makes sense and is just what I need. For those needs, right now I use Gnome 3. It would be fun trying to replace that with CDE though :) [0] https://i3wm.org/ https://i3wm.org/ [1] http://swaywm.org/ http://swaywm.org/ [1]
gpmcadam 9y ago
Here's the official announcement from reddit itself https://www.reddit.com/r/announcements/comments/891stx/starting_today_more_people_will_have_access_to/ https://www.reddit.com/r/announcements/comments/891stx/start... Importantly, for those in here who don't like change, you can still visit https://old.reddit.com https://old.reddit.com and get the old site.
keyle 9y ago
I must be getting old (pun intended), but this instantly reminded me of Digg™.
thejerz 9y ago
"Our site is wildly successful. We'd better change it."
sgloutnikov 9y ago
I recently noticed that reddit started to push AI as well for choosing what to display on my front page. As if everyone else doing it was not enough. The more I read some subreddit, the more posts I see from it on my front page, even though they may be scored lower compared to other posts. Just noticed today that a 30k+ karma post from a subscribed subreddit was all the way on page 3.
Rainymood 9y ago
personally I hate the new user profile overview. I used to be able to quickly scroll through someone's post history and now it looks like another facebook feed ...
- Double_a_92 9y ago
  I can't even properly find my own comments in the new user profile... Edit: Actually the new new profile is better now. That intermediate version was terrible.
zawerf 9y ago
I hope they kept custom CSS in mind when they did this redesign. It caused a ton of drama last year when they said they are deprecating custom CSS just to push through this new look. (see https://www.reddit.com/r/modnews/comments/66q4is/the_web_redesign_css_and_mod_tools/ https://www.reddit.com/r/modnews/comments/66q4is/the_web_red... and /r/ProCSS for details).
- romanovcode 9y ago
  I hate custom css of reddit. It is just horrible 100% of the times. Super glad they have a feature to disable this.
  - dredmorbius 9y ago
    There are notable exceptions. The theme used by /r/geopolitics is genius for its vertical thread collapse controls. That would be the Minimaluminiumalism Theme. https://www.reddit.com/r/geopolitics/comments/897qfo/saudi_crown_prince_recognizes_israels_right_to/ https://www.reddit.com/r/geopolitics/comments/897qfo/saudi_c... https://www.reddit.com/r/geopolitics/about/stylesheet https://www.reddit.com/r/geopolitics/about/stylesheet
    - baud147258 9y ago
      I don't browse reddit anymore, but the thread collapsing in /r/geopolitics is great! Perhaps I would have continued to use reddit if more sub used it.
      - dredmorbius 9y ago
        AFAIU one RES feature is to specify your own preferred stylesheet for all subreddits. You can achieve a similar result via a browser CSS manager, say, Stylus.
  - zawerf 9y ago
    You can just turn them off with RES. Reddit wants to limit CSS to appease people like you who want a functional but bland site. But reddit is just a place for memes. Letting users creatively break the site is a feature, not a bug. There are so many jokes that can only be implemented by purposefully ruining UX. Subs like /r/CrappyDesign/ will lose their personality. Fancy upvote animations like in /r/Megumin/ can't be done. Surreal subs like /r/ooer and /r/infiniteworldproblems can't exist entirely. Any unanticipated but functional features like comment faces, flairs, multiline block spoiler tags, hiding downvotes, link filters, dropdown/slideout menus, etc, will never arise organically. Some custom CSS (including some of the ones mentioned above) annoys me too. But I see it as a unique part of reddit culture and it won't be the same without it.
SllX 9y ago
There's an old and undervalued adage: don't fix what isn't broken. Reddit is a community of communities. You can be part of more than one or just one, you can post in all of them, you're not forced to look at any of them, and each of them has different rules, culture and enforcement policies. They're on a pretty even playing field as far as site rules and moderation tools go too. It's crazy, chaotic and lends itself well to surprise. The primary interface lends itself well to lurking, but what it is really meant for is talking to people. You can post a new top-level comment on any post, but the real discussion happens in the threads in-between. The top level discussions are also ranked, democratically, but if the discussion looks skewed you can even easily change how you look at a thread to see what you're missing. All in all, it's a real gem, the way it is now. Looking at this design, all I see is a Facebook. A different kind of Facebook to be sure, but it doesn't look like a real improvement on what I have now, just different. A change for the sake of making a change because otherwise all of those engineers in their office downtown would be bored or working elsewhere if they didn't have a project like this to keep them interested/entertained. Fine I suppose, and for now I can still use the classic interface, but for how long? How long till some bored engineer or annoyed project manager with a vision/dream/overwhelming urge to kick a puppy manages to convince the rest that they should drop the classic interface in favor of putting more wood behind their Facebook-shaped arrow.
- ztratar 9y ago
  I'm not seeing Facebook at all, personally. The UX of the entire site is different, from navigation to media. Are you saying the visual design is similar? IMO this is a clear improvement to the site's dated UX that held them back from going mainstream w/ many demographics.
  - Scarblac 9y ago
    Yes, all it seems to be doing is drag the visual design towards Facebook, or towards what everybody is doing nowadays . You can call that "less dated", but it's also unoriginal. Which is a shame, given that there's a decade of ideas here, from third-party add-ons like RES to all of the custom CSS from subreddits and everything. They could have taken the best parts and just improved Reddit, going in a unique direction regardless of what the rest of the Web currently happens to look like. Can you even call it "design" if the end result makes it look more like everybody else?
grayrest 9y ago
I used the redesign for two days and rolled back. The designers went for a river of news app-like design. I've always had trouble putting individual items in context in river of news designs and prefer to switch from one topic (subreddit in this case) to another and scan each one. The hamburger menu makes this a lot more awkward. I also really dislike mobile-driven UI designs on a desktop. I know why they're done. I've implemented them myself. They annoy me.
kodisha 9y ago
Any known way to activate via some param or something?
- josteink 9y ago
  If you enable beta-features, there's a setting for it in preferences.
- nailer 9y ago
  Preferences > Beta options [ ] I would like to beta test features for reddit (by enabling you'll be subscribed to /r/beta automatically. details on the /r/beta wiki) Wait for page to reload, scroll down, then click the new option you'll see: [ ] Use the redesign as my default experience (by enabling this, you will be redirected to the new site when you go to any supported https://reddit.com https://reddit.com page)
Doctor_Fegg 9y ago
> Before, formatting text posts required the use of Markdown; now, there's a WYSIWYG toolbar too. Ah, that's reassuring to see. So many sites have gone all-in on Markdown in the last few years, which seems to me to be resurrecting early 80s Wordstar-style formatting codes and rejecting the UI advances of Xerox Parc and the Mac. Markdown has its place - essentially, something that's readable in both raw and rendered form - but it's not a consumer-friendly way of editing rich text, and I'm pleased to see Reddit recognise that.
- unethical_ban 9y ago
  WYSIWYG can often take more resources on a webpage, and act unpredictably and with less control over formatting. Atlassian's Confluence wiki was one of the most painful tools I've ever had to use in a professional capacity, largely because their editor several years ago was so atrocious. I was forced off of it from a nice, Markdown-based wiki our team had been running. So I would miss Markdown. BTW, having live preview/having a WYSIWYG toolbar with Markdown editing is a happy meeting of both worlds; I don't see the issue with it.
Illniyar 9y ago
Me and a lot of smart developers before me have learned on our skins that you should never make a rewrite. I think web design has the same problems as web development in regards to rewrite but the design community has yet to internalize that you should never remake something from scratch. That's not to say that you should keep an old design forever - instead make changes incrementally and gradually. Putting 12 designers to work for a year with zero feedback and trying not to hurt whatever magic made reddit popular in the first place is bound to be a disastrous affair.
- ryanmerket 9y ago
  They couldn’t keep the old codebase. It was plagued with tech debt and was hindering their progress in releasing even the most basic of new features.
  - slig 9y ago
    I wonder which new features a site that is basically pictures/videos with threaded comments needs, since it already does that.
- bballer 9y ago
  I think this is absolutely true for user to user social interaction websites, less true for B2B applications. In the last 2 years at my company we took an old early 2000s looking application that our customers used and completely redesigned it plus brought in a lot of new functionality. To the point where at the core they are still getting some of the same job done but with such a different experience drawing 1:1 lines between the functionality is blurred. This whole new experience has been absolutely fantastic, our customers rave about it and our revenue has grown around 250%. Not to say this is always the case but when something is dated and not providing the experience it can/should be, sometimes a rewrite can be a huge win. But like you said, it still can't be done in a bubble and it can't be driven by a vision of a designer but ultimately the experience your customers seek.
asaph 9y ago
When is the Hacker News site redesign coming? Things I'd like to see here: - TLRD; article summary for each post - markdown support - image support - user profile page enhancements: avatars, pretty URLs, more links to user's other sites/profiles, etc. - user karma listed next to username in comments - social logins (1 less password to manage)
- joshstrange 9y ago
  - TLRD; article summary for each post Who is going to write this? - markdown support Yes this would be nice as the current [0] approach is limiting - image support Please no, if I want to see the image I can click your link (or use a browser plugin to show it to me on hover) - user profile page enhancements: avatars, pretty URLs, more links to user's other sites/profiles, etc. Avatars no, but there rest is fine - user karma listed next to username in comments One of the nice things on HN is username/karma is not in your face, you read the comment BEFORE making a pre-judgement on the user, I quite like this. I like that I don't often notice a username like "tptacek" before I read the post so that I form my own opinion before agreeing (or disagreeing if the case may be) before I've read the comment. Also you can get Chrome plugins to show this for you, I have one that shows me on hover (along with the links in their profile and the ability to follow them [1]) - social logins (1 less password to manage) Ehh, I think they used to allow for openid. Personally nowadays I prefer 1 username/password per site and let 1Password sort it all out for me. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/formatdoc https://news.ycombinator.com/formatdoc [1] https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/hackernew/lgoghlndihpmbbgmbpjohilcphbfhddd https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/hackernew/lgoghlnd...
- mephitix 9y ago
  I actually don't want any of those things, not even markdown support. The site IMO does what it needs to very well and I value the minimalism a lot. Would hate to see it cluttered with extra chrome, images, karma, summaries. And instead of social login try using a password manager.
- bonoetmalo 9y ago
  Please tell me you meant to add an /s to this
Aoyagi 9y ago
The redesign is just another example of form over function and "fixing" something that's not broken.
d6de964 9y ago
Isn't it possible to "morph" the changes, little by little, so the users don't get overwhelmed by the changes? I think Facebook has done such progressive redesigns in the past.
fjcp 9y ago
For those interested in a different experience, there is a terminal client called rtv[0]. I use it for most of my Reddit browsing and I consider it even better than the site for text subs like NoSleep for example. [0] https://github.com/michael-lazar/rtv https://github.com/michael-lazar/rtv
zeveb 9y ago
> But up close, the changes have turned Reddit from an esoteric maze into a website anyone can use—like a junk drawer that's been gutted, cleaned, and reorganized. > For people who have been on Reddit for years, the obtuseness is part of the appeal. What maze? What obtuseness? Reddit is a plain, usable site (esp. if you turn off the image previews they added a few years back). There's simply nothing wrong with it the way it is. I suspect that this is a submarine article, paid for by Reddit itself. I also suspect that the new interface will be yet another JS-laden, SPA atrocity — but perhaps I'm wrong, and I'll be pleasantly surprised by nice, static, server-rendered HTML instead.
bitrazor123 9y ago
Any redesign of a popular platform should be validated against the value it brings vs the learning curve it introduces to the existing number of users.
maxxxxx 9y ago
I am getting more and more respect for Craigslist who resisted doing constant redesigns for the sake of looking hip. Craigslist is ugly but I don't have to relearn something every few months because they have moved some function to another place. It seems most sites like Reddit have run out of ideas and instead of leaving things alone they just shuffle things around and sell it as innovation. Same thing for Windows 10 and office 365. Lots of visual changes but under the hood it's same old.
- w0m 9y ago
  Two very different user bases though. Craigslist is more of a, 'Go there to accomplish specific task' end point. Reddit is more of a, 'hang out here when your bored!' type of thing. The former just has to work and work cleanly. The latter needs to hold it's users interest over time while staying 'hip' enough to gain users from potential competitors to stay relevant overtime.
  - Jtsummers 9y ago
    Fark, like Reddit, is a place people go to to "hang out", and its design doesn't seem to have substantially changed over the years.
    - tyleraldrich 9y ago
      Reddit is also the 6th most popular website in the world, and likely gets thousands of potential new users daily that are turned off by the design and don't become Reddit addicts.
      - TremendousJudge 9y ago
        This puts them just below Google, Youtube, Facebook, Baidu and Wikipedia[1]. That's absolutely huge. If the interface was so bad surely they wouldn't have been able to get there now, would they? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_most_popular_websites https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_most_popular_websites
dbg31415 9y ago
I feel like their redesign didn't go far enough. The official Reddit mobile website is totally unusable on mobile. I've been really happy with Shine (now with twice the unofficial goodness), and Apollo. * SHINE for reddit (unofficial) - Chrome Web Store || https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/shine-for-reddit-unoffici/dlbccbcpelghmhkhmpefncahafgigkek https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/shine-for-reddit-u... * Apollo | A beautiful reddit app built for power and speed || https://apolloapp.io/ https://apolloapp.io/
superkuh 9y ago
Whew. Looks like a dodged a bullet by finally leaving Reddit due to their increasing censorship last month. This new design looks terrible and it breaks reading the site without javascript enabled. Before reddit worked just fine and you could toggle JS on to vote/comment/submit. I imagine they feel they can do this kind of thing since new users now overwhelming outnumber old users and they've pushed most of the original users off the site. Facebook 2: This time it's Reddit is coming along nicely.
cal5k 9y ago
I'm disappointed to see Hacker News turning into Slashdot - immediate negative reaction to anything new, lack of empathy with the insanely difficult task the reddit management team is undertaking, and a general selfish bias of "as a power user I like obscure feature x, therefore without x they're doomed".
- specialist 9y ago
  Humans hate change. Our minds strive to maintain equilibrium and have an immune system like response to anything that threatens to disrupt that state. Even when we intellectually commit to change, our emotions sabotage the effort. Cue the bereavement model and the diffusion of innovation. Successful advocates of change account for the time and effort it takes to drag people along.
  - Whitestrake 9y ago
    Burnie Burns of Rooster Teeth phrased it as, "the internet demands progress, but hates change." I like that because it succinctly draws attention to the juxtaposition of ideals and emotional reaction.
- slig 9y ago
  It has always been like this. Look for the Dropbox "Show HN" thread.
- Spivak 9y ago
  * The new thing doesn't bring any real improvements. Many UI changes, few UX changes. * Nothing about the design was broken before and users don't really complain about it. * Having used it, the site is noticeably slower. Turns out that shiny is expensive. And I'm on a powerful machine too. * The UI is now more cluttered and less information dense taking a page straight from FB's playbook. They might be successful but hackers have constantly shit on the design. * Nobody said that managing a site that large was easy, but doing nothing was always an option for them. There is a theoretical design that would make the community salivate but this wasn't it.
- oftenwrong 9y ago
swearwolves 9y ago
Idk why everyone in here and on r/redesign can't take off their rose-colored glasses and admit that current (old?) Reddit has some pretty glaring usability issues. I know I avoided Reddit for the longest time simply due to the fact that there was a learning curve at all...and I know many, many people that would adore Reddit actively avoid it because it's a little overwhelming and hard to use at first. People seem to really underestimate just how important that first couple of seconds on a new website are. Granted, a lot of people pushed passed the quirks and the learning curve and grew to love the site we all know today - that's evident by the massive user base - but I just don't understand why everyone is so vehemently against a redesign effort when the site was clearly a hodgepodge. Now, I'm not arguing that the current redesign is great and a smashing success, I think they're missing the mark on what made Reddit great in the first place...but to sit here and yell "If it ain't broke don't fix it" is laughable. The performance might be superb but the UX is atrocious, everyone has just learned to get over it.
- wyldfire 9y ago
  > The performance might be superb but the UX is atrocious, everyone has just learned to get over it. I guess I'm one of those. I've been using reddit since before they enabled comments. I love that it's remained simple and it works really well for me. The only items I'd imagine improving on would be remembering collapsed threads (like HN does) and preserving a deeper history of threads I've seen (maybe opt-in if it bugs people). What's the "learning curve" that you refer to? Voting and comments are pretty simple, right?
  - TotempaaltJ 9y ago
    I've had to explain Reddit to my mom--she wanted to see what her kids were so busy with all the time--I can tell you that voting comments aren't nearly as simple as they might seem. Neither is the concept of subreddits, the difference between text and link posts, subreddit discovery, the community and culture... These were all hurdles that she needed to get through and at the end she gave it up. Too complicated. The difference between her and most Reddit users is that she was determined to get active on Reddit: she kept trying for weeks. The difference between her and most non-Reddit users is that she's quite tech-savvy. She worked in tech for 20 years. She fixes her friends' computer problems.
ssaew333 9y ago
Oh goody, more javascript. Infinite scroll. Less room for content, more room for sidebars and doohickeys. The internet is a huge pile of garbage.
raldi 9y ago
Based on the near-universal disdain for the redesign here in the HN comments, I'd like to go on record predicting it's going to be a huge success amongst non-HN types.
throw7 9y ago
What is up with web redesigners? They always seem to make things worse, less performant, seem to have egos that shine brighter than the sun. In the end, just shove their perfect child into your face (looking at you youtube).
oftenwrong 9y ago
Reddit is not yet profitable, right? Will this redesign help them actually make money? Is it meant to allow for more sponsored content between user submissions?
ryanmarsh 9y ago
At this point Reddit's look is authentic. I'd stick with it. Others here have mentioned craigslist as an example. People aren't leaving Reddit because it doesn't look flat and bland like so many other sites. Reddit is an old zoo. It should look like one.
ggm 9y ago
The key questions would seem to be how long use of a legacy interface was maintained and supported. Having more than one ui is a cost burden, but that aside doesn't have to be a problem
bfrog 9y ago
Looks like they wanted facebook.com with reddit color scheme. I feel like this will be about as successful as slashdots redesign attempts over the years.

Reddit’s Redesign

246 points by jklp 9y ago

taspeotis 9y ago

I assume there's some irony in this URL ending with ?mbid=synd_digg

jwilk 9y ago
Can we get this tracking garbage removed from the URL?

gcb0 9y ago

paid puff piece. tl;dr: they made reddit look like Facebook/instagram feed (which every unofficial app already accomplished)

Theizestooke 9y ago
Advance Publications is a majority shareholder in reddit, the same company that owns Conde Nast, who in turn publish Wired.
- zeckalpha 9y ago
  This should be mentioned on the page, but isn’t for some reason. I stopped reading.
- logicallee 9y ago
  I bet it's just an oversight (given Wired's status - it's pretty serious media). I just dropped them a note.
cookiecaper 9y ago
FWIW the Android app "reddit is fun" hasn't really "feedified" reddit. It's my old standby. Much better than the ones that try to gussy things up.

shiado 9y ago

I like "Dystopian Craigslist", it is nice and fast and simple.

grandpoobah 9y ago

Remember when Digg failed to address long standing issues and instead redesigned the site to be more like Twitter? Prediction: The redesign is the straw that will break the Snoo's back.

newsbinator 9y ago
What's the new Reddit? I'd like to get on that.
- winslow 9y ago
  Voat.com has been around for a while. They made a decent push during some reddit drama ~2 years ago. However, looking through voat 'subverses' aka subreddits they look pretty dead for the counterparts that I visit on reddit ex: www.reddit.com/r/homebrewing vs www.voat.com/v/homebrewing and www.reddit.com/r/unrealengine vs www.voat.com/v/unrealengine Their 'HOT' ordering makes the site look dead where they should probably take into account newer stories as everything in the 'HOT' ranking is years old (except for heavier trafficked subverses)
  - newsbinator 9y ago
    I noticed that a surprisingly large number of comments on Voat were anti-semitic and/or racist. Totally out of context, I mean. You might expect hate speech on political subreddits/subverses, but on Voat these were just out of the blue, and numerous.
    - robin_reala 9y ago
      It’s not surprising given the context in which it was started.
    - sterlind 9y ago
      Voat's userbase consists of the members and communities who were banned by Reddit's hate speech policy. Effectively, Voat is Reddit's "recycle bin." Judging from its content, I think the admins made the right call..

IIAOPSW 9y ago

Why do we care so much about design? Reddits success in spite of completely eschewing designers should prove design is over valued. So to does Craigslist. Japanese websites are proof by example that this is strictly a cultural phenomena. Why does Western society seem to value form over function so much? How much is "good design" codeword for dumbing the site down as much as possible and making it shiny enough for people who get distracted by car keys? Reddit doesn't exactly have the learning curve of a command line tool or a rocket plane. Maybe I'm elitist, but if you can't understand reddit as it is maybe you're an idiot? Call me an old man waving around my cane, but I say to hell with the redesign. Give me my plain old links in their plain old default blue underline and my mod-hacked-together css+bots. The internet need not anymore "progress for the sake of progress".

chi3 9y ago
Most people will understand reddit if they give it a chance. Problem is that they're less likely to do so if they find the design and UX unintuitive. I know I disliked reddit's design when I saw it the first time, and I've spoken to several people who never got into reddit because they disliked the design.
- disiplus 9y ago
  i would say that was the feature.
  - agumonkey 9y ago
    there was a similar discussion in emacs land, people were afraid they'd lose users, and to me .. that was perfectly fine. Those who stick to emacs in the spite of all the seemingly looking defects are users that really like it. Distorting something for market share like mentality is not good, it lowers entry but low entry means easy exit. Not worth it IMO. (plus in emacs, case, unless some large effort, no way a newcomer, even tech saavy, won't suffer, it's just too large)
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]

Bukhmanizer 9y ago

Like every redesign, I'm sure that people are going to be angry about it no matter how it looks. I'm surprised that no one has mentioned it, but really the make or break of this new reddit will be speed. The one thing that I remember noticing about the site is how much faster it was than the comparable time wasting sites (Facebook, Stumbleupon, etc). More speed, more addictiveness.

dawnerd 9y ago

I think reddit has bigger issues than the look of their site. I stopped using it once all the hate subreddits started growing. Even the smaller more niche subreddits I frequented turned into meme filled echo chambers. What really did it in for me was just how much sponsored content made the homepage that wasn't labeled as such. They also banned me from reddit gifts for pointing out their first sponsored exchange (before they said it was sponsored, they tried acting like it was "fan service").

dijit 9y ago
Funnily enough: Reddit started declining for me around the time they started banning "hate" subreddits but leaving others in place (r/shitredditsays for example). It felt like the curators of the site really had some kind of agenda to push, and it really turned me off of using it as a news aggregator platform. (I say this as a person who has never been a member of any of the banned subreddits)
- andromedaworld 9y ago
  Agree. Censorship beyond a sub's mods is largely uncalled for. Sometimes (fewer times than is the case now), banning of some subs could be necessary. I believe that subs are isolated enough that if you don't want to engage with any particular sub's content you wouldn't have to. Otherwise the whole thing becomes somewhat skewed towards a certain set of opinions and could even be deemed to be totalitarian.
  - mynameisvlad 9y ago
    > I believe that subs are isolated enough that if you don't want to engage with any particular sub's content you wouldn't have to. Otherwise the whole thing becomes somewhat skewed towards a certain set of opinions and could even be deemed to be totalitarian. But that's the thing, they are in theory, but in practice, you see subreddits leaking into others. Even with strict no-brigading rules, it's too easy to click on a link from /r/subredditdrama, for instance, and then start participating. And sometimes people with the same opinion just go to other subreddits to antagonize/troll people; you see this more with the more extremely-sided subreddits.

onli 9y ago

I think a big issue with the new design is the trust issue I/people have that stem from Reddit's other design efforts. Take the mobile website. It looks a lot nicer than the desktop site, but is completely unuseable on a lower end (but current) android device - because instead of showing content immediately it does some javascript client rendering and shows some loading screen, and that regularly takes 10-20 seconds on bigger comment threads. At the same time there is still i.reddit.com, an ugly mobile site seemingly from way back when sites started to make dedicated iPhone-targeting mobile variants, and that one is as fast as a site can be. Actually usable. On mobile, if you visit the reddit site, they push a "use the app"-banner in your face. Every goddamn time. When they redesigned the profiles recently there was a lot of pushback. I did not necessarily agree with that, I thought and think the new profile sites are fine in general. But what definitely was an issue was the performance. Again some javascript client rendering leading to loading indicators, even on the desktop. They improved loading times after that, but still. So one big point of the new design is not actually "how will it look", but whether they will get the functionality/UX right. HN does, without client side rendering and redesigns...

josteink 9y ago
> When they redesigned the profiles recently there was a lot of pushback. There was massive amounts of pushback. Until the moderators started deleting posts, almost half the posts in the beta-subreddit was complaining about them, asking them to be rolled back. But did they listen to their users? No. They actively censored and silenced people who were complaining. That tells us that this new "redesign" is not for the users. It's for someone else.
- trophycase 9y ago
  Enjoy this sleek new UI so we can embed video ads in between content!
  - flukus 9y ago
    And then they'll shut off the API to third party apps that actually make the site usable on mobile.

pygy_ 9y ago

I tried the redesign for a couple of hours and bailed out. I don't care about the looks, but there are two changes that are egregious for me regarding UX: 1) They took out the subreddit ribbon at the top where you can quickly switch between the communities you subscribe to. It's been replaced by a hamburger menu that takes ages to show up, and then you have to scroll (and they are sorted alphabetically, not by popularity). 2) In the main subreddit view, the titles now link to the comments rather than the articles, you have to pixel-hunt the actual link, which is much smaller. I suppose they do this to keep users on site, but I dislike the change. Edit: also, infinite scroll! As if Reddit wasn't sufficiently addictive as it is :-(

crowbahr 9y ago
Infinite scroll has been a thing for a while in RES. The removal of the quick link bar is an egregious sin though.
bby 9y ago
when I change back, next time I come back to reddit it shows the new design... how do I get the old design permanently?
- pygy_ 9y ago
  No idea. I opted in through the beta options and disabled it from there as well (at the bottom of the preference screen). I still have the beta option enabled though.

dmitriid 9y ago

Does that redesign still shoves reddit mobile app down your throat and degrades mobile experience? (Judging by the fact that mobile isn't mentioned anywhere in the article, I'd say yes)

dingo_bat 9y ago
Just use one of the various excellent third-party apps: https://play.google.com/store/apps/collection/search_results_cluster_apps?clp=ggEICgZyZWRkaXQ%3D:S:ANO1ljL4qEo https://play.google.com/store/apps/collection/search_results... (ignore the first result)
- dmitriid 9y ago
  I don't want to use reddit's own app, why would I use a third-party app? I want a proper unhindered mobile web experience :)
  - dingo_bat 9y ago
    > I don't want to use reddit's own app, why would I use a third-party app? Because the third party apps are much better that the official one, in all metrics. If you have a specific grievance against the official app, there are overwhelming chances that you won't face the same issue in a 3rd party app.
    - dmitriid 9y ago
      I think you've missed the point completely. Twice. :) There's exactly zero reason for a text-and-images-and-comments site to have an "official app", or a plethora of "third-party apps that are better than the original". A mobile site would be perfectly fine. However, since there's zero incentive for anyone to use those apps, instead of improving (or at least keeping) the mobile experience Reddit actively degrades it. Hence the entirely unnecessary apps. I currently have next-to-zero incentive to even click on links to Reddit, and the requirement to have an app just for that will bring that incentive to exactly zero. And it looks like their redesign had zero intention to improve mobile experience.

dingo_bat 9y ago

Ironic that a page that looks like this[0] on a 24" monitor is commenting on design. [0] https://imgur.com/a/nTdxg https://imgur.com/a/nTdxg

josteink 9y ago
Coincidentally earlier today, from a distance, I saw a colleague browse that very article (without seeing what it was about), and the white on cyan header-bar immediately reminded me of the good, old X11 window-manager CDE[0][1]. And it made me feel really nostalgic. I actually wanted to, just for one day, switch my laptop over to it. I bet it would have been blazingly fast. But alas, Ubuntu (and nobody else) seems to ship it any more. Seeing how building and running it from source required me to put some system-services into a insecure configuration, I reluctantly put the project away. I guess it comes off as no surprise that I on overall hate the reddit redesign and consider it a net negative change w.r.t. usability. I generally dislike how "modern" design things they make things better by taking away options and removing features. The "old" reddit gave you full overview of what was going on with all your activity in exactly 2 clicks. Super neat. Super efficient. The new ... I don't even know. I'm guessing much more than 10. And it involves scrolling and modal dialogues too. Fuck it. May the old layout remain an option for as long as I keep bother using the site. [0] https://a.fsdn.com/con/app/proj/cdesktopenv/screenshots/CDE-3.png/1 https://a.fsdn.com/con/app/proj/cdesktopenv/screenshots/CDE-... [1] https://sourceforge.net/projects/cdesktopenv/ https://sourceforge.net/projects/cdesktopenv/
- joveian 9y ago
  If you want a fast window manager try ratpoison (similar idea to GNU screen), which is widely available. It is really nice to have a window manager that actually manages your windows. If you use GNU screen (or, I assume but have never used, tmux) you can have two terminals sharing the same session for split screen use.
  - josteink 9y ago
    For those needs I've used i3[0] (and lately sway[1]), which both are really nice tiling WMs. Although sometimes, just sometimes... Having manually tweakable windows and a more complete "desktop environment" makes sense and is just what I need. For those needs, right now I use Gnome 3. It would be fun trying to replace that with CDE though :) [0] https://i3wm.org/ https://i3wm.org/ [1] http://swaywm.org/ http://swaywm.org/ [1]

gpmcadam 9y ago

Here's the official announcement from reddit itself https://www.reddit.com/r/announcements/comments/891stx/starting_today_more_people_will_have_access_to/ https://www.reddit.com/r/announcements/comments/891stx/start... Importantly, for those in here who don't like change, you can still visit https://old.reddit.com https://old.reddit.com and get the old site.

keyle 9y ago

I must be getting old (pun intended), but this instantly reminded me of Digg™.

thejerz 9y ago

"Our site is wildly successful. We'd better change it."

sgloutnikov 9y ago

I recently noticed that reddit started to push AI as well for choosing what to display on my front page. As if everyone else doing it was not enough. The more I read some subreddit, the more posts I see from it on my front page, even though they may be scored lower compared to other posts. Just noticed today that a 30k+ karma post from a subscribed subreddit was all the way on page 3.

Rainymood 9y ago

personally I hate the new user profile overview. I used to be able to quickly scroll through someone's post history and now it looks like another facebook feed ...

Double_a_92 9y ago
I can't even properly find my own comments in the new user profile... Edit: Actually the new new profile is better now. That intermediate version was terrible.

zawerf 9y ago

I hope they kept custom CSS in mind when they did this redesign. It caused a ton of drama last year when they said they are deprecating custom CSS just to push through this new look. (see https://www.reddit.com/r/modnews/comments/66q4is/the_web_redesign_css_and_mod_tools/ https://www.reddit.com/r/modnews/comments/66q4is/the_web_red... and /r/ProCSS for details).

romanovcode 9y ago
I hate custom css of reddit. It is just horrible 100% of the times. Super glad they have a feature to disable this.
- dredmorbius 9y ago
  There are notable exceptions. The theme used by /r/geopolitics is genius for its vertical thread collapse controls. That would be the Minimaluminiumalism Theme. https://www.reddit.com/r/geopolitics/comments/897qfo/saudi_crown_prince_recognizes_israels_right_to/ https://www.reddit.com/r/geopolitics/comments/897qfo/saudi_c... https://www.reddit.com/r/geopolitics/about/stylesheet https://www.reddit.com/r/geopolitics/about/stylesheet
  - baud147258 9y ago
    I don't browse reddit anymore, but the thread collapsing in /r/geopolitics is great! Perhaps I would have continued to use reddit if more sub used it.
    - dredmorbius 9y ago
      AFAIU one RES feature is to specify your own preferred stylesheet for all subreddits. You can achieve a similar result via a browser CSS manager, say, Stylus.
- zawerf 9y ago
  You can just turn them off with RES. Reddit wants to limit CSS to appease people like you who want a functional but bland site. But reddit is just a place for memes. Letting users creatively break the site is a feature, not a bug. There are so many jokes that can only be implemented by purposefully ruining UX. Subs like /r/CrappyDesign/ will lose their personality. Fancy upvote animations like in /r/Megumin/ can't be done. Surreal subs like /r/ooer and /r/infiniteworldproblems can't exist entirely. Any unanticipated but functional features like comment faces, flairs, multiline block spoiler tags, hiding downvotes, link filters, dropdown/slideout menus, etc, will never arise organically. Some custom CSS (including some of the ones mentioned above) annoys me too. But I see it as a unique part of reddit culture and it won't be the same without it.

SllX 9y ago

There's an old and undervalued adage: don't fix what isn't broken. Reddit is a community of communities. You can be part of more than one or just one, you can post in all of them, you're not forced to look at any of them, and each of them has different rules, culture and enforcement policies. They're on a pretty even playing field as far as site rules and moderation tools go too. It's crazy, chaotic and lends itself well to surprise. The primary interface lends itself well to lurking, but what it is really meant for is talking to people. You can post a new top-level comment on any post, but the real discussion happens in the threads in-between. The top level discussions are also ranked, democratically, but if the discussion looks skewed you can even easily change how you look at a thread to see what you're missing. All in all, it's a real gem, the way it is now. Looking at this design, all I see is a Facebook. A different kind of Facebook to be sure, but it doesn't look like a real improvement on what I have now, just different. A change for the sake of making a change because otherwise all of those engineers in their office downtown would be bored or working elsewhere if they didn't have a project like this to keep them interested/entertained. Fine I suppose, and for now I can still use the classic interface, but for how long? How long till some bored engineer or annoyed project manager with a vision/dream/overwhelming urge to kick a puppy manages to convince the rest that they should drop the classic interface in favor of putting more wood behind their Facebook-shaped arrow.

ztratar 9y ago
I'm not seeing Facebook at all, personally. The UX of the entire site is different, from navigation to media. Are you saying the visual design is similar? IMO this is a clear improvement to the site's dated UX that held them back from going mainstream w/ many demographics.
- Scarblac 9y ago
  Yes, all it seems to be doing is drag the visual design towards Facebook, or towards what everybody is doing nowadays . You can call that "less dated", but it's also unoriginal. Which is a shame, given that there's a decade of ideas here, from third-party add-ons like RES to all of the custom CSS from subreddits and everything. They could have taken the best parts and just improved Reddit, going in a unique direction regardless of what the rest of the Web currently happens to look like. Can you even call it "design" if the end result makes it look more like everybody else?

grayrest 9y ago

I used the redesign for two days and rolled back. The designers went for a river of news app-like design. I've always had trouble putting individual items in context in river of news designs and prefer to switch from one topic (subreddit in this case) to another and scan each one. The hamburger menu makes this a lot more awkward. I also really dislike mobile-driven UI designs on a desktop. I know why they're done. I've implemented them myself. They annoy me.

kodisha 9y ago

Any known way to activate via some param or something?

josteink 9y ago
If you enable beta-features, there's a setting for it in preferences.
nailer 9y ago
Preferences > Beta options [ ] I would like to beta test features for reddit (by enabling you'll be subscribed to /r/beta automatically. details on the /r/beta wiki) Wait for page to reload, scroll down, then click the new option you'll see: [ ] Use the redesign as my default experience (by enabling this, you will be redirected to the new site when you go to any supported https://reddit.com https://reddit.com page)

Doctor_Fegg 9y ago

> Before, formatting text posts required the use of Markdown; now, there's a WYSIWYG toolbar too. Ah, that's reassuring to see. So many sites have gone all-in on Markdown in the last few years, which seems to me to be resurrecting early 80s Wordstar-style formatting codes and rejecting the UI advances of Xerox Parc and the Mac. Markdown has its place - essentially, something that's readable in both raw and rendered form - but it's not a consumer-friendly way of editing rich text, and I'm pleased to see Reddit recognise that.

unethical_ban 9y ago
WYSIWYG can often take more resources on a webpage, and act unpredictably and with less control over formatting. Atlassian's Confluence wiki was one of the most painful tools I've ever had to use in a professional capacity, largely because their editor several years ago was so atrocious. I was forced off of it from a nice, Markdown-based wiki our team had been running. So I would miss Markdown. BTW, having live preview/having a WYSIWYG toolbar with Markdown editing is a happy meeting of both worlds; I don't see the issue with it.

Illniyar 9y ago

Me and a lot of smart developers before me have learned on our skins that you should never make a rewrite. I think web design has the same problems as web development in regards to rewrite but the design community has yet to internalize that you should never remake something from scratch. That's not to say that you should keep an old design forever - instead make changes incrementally and gradually. Putting 12 designers to work for a year with zero feedback and trying not to hurt whatever magic made reddit popular in the first place is bound to be a disastrous affair.

ryanmerket 9y ago
They couldn’t keep the old codebase. It was plagued with tech debt and was hindering their progress in releasing even the most basic of new features.
- slig 9y ago
  I wonder which new features a site that is basically pictures/videos with threaded comments needs, since it already does that.
bballer 9y ago
I think this is absolutely true for user to user social interaction websites, less true for B2B applications. In the last 2 years at my company we took an old early 2000s looking application that our customers used and completely redesigned it plus brought in a lot of new functionality. To the point where at the core they are still getting some of the same job done but with such a different experience drawing 1:1 lines between the functionality is blurred. This whole new experience has been absolutely fantastic, our customers rave about it and our revenue has grown around 250%. Not to say this is always the case but when something is dated and not providing the experience it can/should be, sometimes a rewrite can be a huge win. But like you said, it still can't be done in a bubble and it can't be driven by a vision of a designer but ultimately the experience your customers seek.

asaph 9y ago

When is the Hacker News site redesign coming? Things I'd like to see here: - TLRD; article summary for each post - markdown support - image support - user profile page enhancements: avatars, pretty URLs, more links to user's other sites/profiles, etc. - user karma listed next to username in comments - social logins (1 less password to manage)

joshstrange 9y ago
- TLRD; article summary for each post Who is going to write this? - markdown support Yes this would be nice as the current [0] approach is limiting - image support Please no, if I want to see the image I can click your link (or use a browser plugin to show it to me on hover) - user profile page enhancements: avatars, pretty URLs, more links to user's other sites/profiles, etc. Avatars no, but there rest is fine - user karma listed next to username in comments One of the nice things on HN is username/karma is not in your face, you read the comment BEFORE making a pre-judgement on the user, I quite like this. I like that I don't often notice a username like "tptacek" before I read the post so that I form my own opinion before agreeing (or disagreeing if the case may be) before I've read the comment. Also you can get Chrome plugins to show this for you, I have one that shows me on hover (along with the links in their profile and the ability to follow them [1]) - social logins (1 less password to manage) Ehh, I think they used to allow for openid. Personally nowadays I prefer 1 username/password per site and let 1Password sort it all out for me. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/formatdoc https://news.ycombinator.com/formatdoc [1] https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/hackernew/lgoghlndihpmbbgmbpjohilcphbfhddd https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/hackernew/lgoghlnd...
mephitix 9y ago
I actually don't want any of those things, not even markdown support. The site IMO does what it needs to very well and I value the minimalism a lot. Would hate to see it cluttered with extra chrome, images, karma, summaries. And instead of social login try using a password manager.
bonoetmalo 9y ago
Please tell me you meant to add an /s to this

Aoyagi 9y ago

The redesign is just another example of form over function and "fixing" something that's not broken.

d6de964 9y ago

Isn't it possible to "morph" the changes, little by little, so the users don't get overwhelmed by the changes? I think Facebook has done such progressive redesigns in the past.

fjcp 9y ago

For those interested in a different experience, there is a terminal client called rtv[0]. I use it for most of my Reddit browsing and I consider it even better than the site for text subs like NoSleep for example. [0] https://github.com/michael-lazar/rtv https://github.com/michael-lazar/rtv

zeveb 9y ago

> But up close, the changes have turned Reddit from an esoteric maze into a website anyone can use—like a junk drawer that's been gutted, cleaned, and reorganized. > For people who have been on Reddit for years, the obtuseness is part of the appeal. What maze? What obtuseness? Reddit is a plain, usable site (esp. if you turn off the image previews they added a few years back). There's simply nothing wrong with it the way it is. I suspect that this is a submarine article, paid for by Reddit itself. I also suspect that the new interface will be yet another JS-laden, SPA atrocity — but perhaps I'm wrong, and I'll be pleasantly surprised by nice, static, server-rendered HTML instead.

bitrazor123 9y ago

Any redesign of a popular platform should be validated against the value it brings vs the learning curve it introduces to the existing number of users.

maxxxxx 9y ago

I am getting more and more respect for Craigslist who resisted doing constant redesigns for the sake of looking hip. Craigslist is ugly but I don't have to relearn something every few months because they have moved some function to another place. It seems most sites like Reddit have run out of ideas and instead of leaving things alone they just shuffle things around and sell it as innovation. Same thing for Windows 10 and office 365. Lots of visual changes but under the hood it's same old.

w0m 9y ago
Two very different user bases though. Craigslist is more of a, 'Go there to accomplish specific task' end point. Reddit is more of a, 'hang out here when your bored!' type of thing. The former just has to work and work cleanly. The latter needs to hold it's users interest over time while staying 'hip' enough to gain users from potential competitors to stay relevant overtime.
- Jtsummers 9y ago
  Fark, like Reddit, is a place people go to to "hang out", and its design doesn't seem to have substantially changed over the years.
  - tyleraldrich 9y ago
    Reddit is also the 6th most popular website in the world, and likely gets thousands of potential new users daily that are turned off by the design and don't become Reddit addicts.
    - TremendousJudge 9y ago
      This puts them just below Google, Youtube, Facebook, Baidu and Wikipedia[1]. That's absolutely huge. If the interface was so bad surely they wouldn't have been able to get there now, would they? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_most_popular_websites https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_most_popular_websites

dbg31415 9y ago

I feel like their redesign didn't go far enough. The official Reddit mobile website is totally unusable on mobile. I've been really happy with Shine (now with twice the unofficial goodness), and Apollo. * SHINE for reddit (unofficial) - Chrome Web Store || https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/shine-for-reddit-unoffici/dlbccbcpelghmhkhmpefncahafgigkek https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/shine-for-reddit-u... * Apollo | A beautiful reddit app built for power and speed || https://apolloapp.io/ https://apolloapp.io/

superkuh 9y ago

Whew. Looks like a dodged a bullet by finally leaving Reddit due to their increasing censorship last month. This new design looks terrible and it breaks reading the site without javascript enabled. Before reddit worked just fine and you could toggle JS on to vote/comment/submit. I imagine they feel they can do this kind of thing since new users now overwhelming outnumber old users and they've pushed most of the original users off the site. Facebook 2: This time it's Reddit is coming along nicely.

cal5k 9y ago

I'm disappointed to see Hacker News turning into Slashdot - immediate negative reaction to anything new, lack of empathy with the insanely difficult task the reddit management team is undertaking, and a general selfish bias of "as a power user I like obscure feature x, therefore without x they're doomed".

specialist 9y ago
Humans hate change. Our minds strive to maintain equilibrium and have an immune system like response to anything that threatens to disrupt that state. Even when we intellectually commit to change, our emotions sabotage the effort. Cue the bereavement model and the diffusion of innovation. Successful advocates of change account for the time and effort it takes to drag people along.
- Whitestrake 9y ago
  Burnie Burns of Rooster Teeth phrased it as, "the internet demands progress, but hates change." I like that because it succinctly draws attention to the juxtaposition of ideals and emotional reaction.
slig 9y ago
It has always been like this. Look for the Dropbox "Show HN" thread.
Spivak 9y ago
* The new thing doesn't bring any real improvements. Many UI changes, few UX changes. * Nothing about the design was broken before and users don't really complain about it. * Having used it, the site is noticeably slower. Turns out that shiny is expensive. And I'm on a powerful machine too. * The UI is now more cluttered and less information dense taking a page straight from FB's playbook. They might be successful but hackers have constantly shit on the design. * Nobody said that managing a site that large was easy, but doing nothing was always an option for them. There is a theoretical design that would make the community salivate but this wasn't it.
oftenwrong 9y ago

swearwolves 9y ago

Idk why everyone in here and on r/redesign can't take off their rose-colored glasses and admit that current (old?) Reddit has some pretty glaring usability issues. I know I avoided Reddit for the longest time simply due to the fact that there was a learning curve at all...and I know many, many people that would adore Reddit actively avoid it because it's a little overwhelming and hard to use at first. People seem to really underestimate just how important that first couple of seconds on a new website are. Granted, a lot of people pushed passed the quirks and the learning curve and grew to love the site we all know today - that's evident by the massive user base - but I just don't understand why everyone is so vehemently against a redesign effort when the site was clearly a hodgepodge. Now, I'm not arguing that the current redesign is great and a smashing success, I think they're missing the mark on what made Reddit great in the first place...but to sit here and yell "If it ain't broke don't fix it" is laughable. The performance might be superb but the UX is atrocious, everyone has just learned to get over it.

wyldfire 9y ago
> The performance might be superb but the UX is atrocious, everyone has just learned to get over it. I guess I'm one of those. I've been using reddit since before they enabled comments. I love that it's remained simple and it works really well for me. The only items I'd imagine improving on would be remembering collapsed threads (like HN does) and preserving a deeper history of threads I've seen (maybe opt-in if it bugs people). What's the "learning curve" that you refer to? Voting and comments are pretty simple, right?
- TotempaaltJ 9y ago
  I've had to explain Reddit to my mom--she wanted to see what her kids were so busy with all the time--I can tell you that voting comments aren't nearly as simple as they might seem. Neither is the concept of subreddits, the difference between text and link posts, subreddit discovery, the community and culture... These were all hurdles that she needed to get through and at the end she gave it up. Too complicated. The difference between her and most Reddit users is that she was determined to get active on Reddit: she kept trying for weeks. The difference between her and most non-Reddit users is that she's quite tech-savvy. She worked in tech for 20 years. She fixes her friends' computer problems.

ssaew333 9y ago

Oh goody, more javascript. Infinite scroll. Less room for content, more room for sidebars and doohickeys. The internet is a huge pile of garbage.

raldi 9y ago

Based on the near-universal disdain for the redesign here in the HN comments, I'd like to go on record predicting it's going to be a huge success amongst non-HN types.

throw7 9y ago

What is up with web redesigners? They always seem to make things worse, less performant, seem to have egos that shine brighter than the sun. In the end, just shove their perfect child into your face (looking at you youtube).

oftenwrong 9y ago

Reddit is not yet profitable, right? Will this redesign help them actually make money? Is it meant to allow for more sponsored content between user submissions?

ryanmarsh 9y ago

At this point Reddit's look is authentic. I'd stick with it. Others here have mentioned craigslist as an example. People aren't leaving Reddit because it doesn't look flat and bland like so many other sites. Reddit is an old zoo. It should look like one.

ggm 9y ago

The key questions would seem to be how long use of a legacy interface was maintained and supported. Having more than one ui is a cost burden, but that aside doesn't have to be a problem

bfrog 9y ago

Looks like they wanted facebook.com with reddit color scheme. I feel like this will be about as successful as slashdots redesign attempts over the years.