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Citing UX in a thread about Reddit, the company with an almost universally hated redesign that moved away from a mostly text-based condensed format is... intere

Citing UX in a thread about Reddit, the company with an almost universally hated redesign that moved away from a mostly text-based condensed format is... interesting.

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
manigandham 7y ago
Every user engagement metric has increased since the redesign. Unfortunate for some of us, and it doesn't preclude the metrics measuring the wrong thing, but that's reality on the ground. Same reason why Gmail is a bloated mess, because that's what the metrics show is wanted by users.
- AnIdiotOnTheNet 7y ago
  > Every user engagement metric has increased since the redesign. Doesn't that just mean that users are spending more time on the site because it's so much more of a pain to get what they actually want out of it? Like, you could increase "user engagement" of a shopping mall by turning it into a labyrinth and rearranging the shops every day.
  - otterley 7y ago
    Alas, Costco does just that (rearranges where things are) to improve "discoverability." Drives me nuts!
  - manigandham 7y ago
    Reddit is a corporation with a large amount of VC investment. Profit is a primary goal, and engagement that shows more time and thus more revenue is exactly what they want.
    - ryandrake 7y ago
      It would have been more honest of them to come out and just admit “yea, this new design is terrible but it juices our metrics and makes us more money so deal with it if you want Reddit to survive.” Also, Protip: in case anyone still doesn’t know, go to old.reddit.com for the previous, better interface. Who knows how long it will be kept alive though.
      - realusername 7y ago
        > Also, Protip: in case anyone still doesn’t know, go to old.reddit.com for the previous, better interface. Who knows how long it will be kept alive though. I'm using an extension to automatically redirect to the old one. When the old site is gone, I will probably leave Reddit, the redesign is too unusable for me.
        SN76477 7y ago
        Yep. I like HN but I miss the diversity of conversations. /r/synthesizers /r/starwarssleaks etc.
      - manigandham 7y ago
        The problem with that is assuming the new design is terrible for everyone. It very well could be that the majority do like it, and it's a vocal minority that complain.
        inferiorhuman 7y ago
        The redesign is objectively terrible, adding megabytes of bloat to each page load for the sweet sweet ad revenue.
        manigandham 7y ago
        The whole point of the redesign is to remove full page loads. Why are you downloading the entire payload every time?
  - ryanwaggoner 7y ago
    Not necessarily for social media where there’s an endless river of entertainment content. I doubt most people go to Reddit for any specific purpose or task they’re trying to accomplish as quickly as possible.
  - ryacko 7y ago
    No, you can increase user engagement of a shopping mall by turning it into a Mobius strip. I don’t think most people know how to handle anything but an infinite scrolling page.
    - dralley 7y ago
      They could have accomplished that without the redesign. That's what reddit enhancement suite has done for ages.
  - jmull3n 7y ago
    Ever been to Ikea?
    - adrianN 7y ago
      Ikea is a pretty much perfect shopping experience. It's the opposite of a labyrinth. There is exactly one path through the shop for people who want to just see everything and there are clearly marked shortcuts if you only want to see one area.
- inferiorhuman 7y ago
  Depends on how you define engagement. When you set all the videos to autoplay with sound of course users are going to be more engaged. They're either scrambling to figure out where that noise is coming from or "watching" the videos.
- sha666sum 7y ago
  When you aim for the lowest common denominator, you lose the users at the other end of the Bell curve.
- otterley 7y ago
  I don't disagree, but "engagement" does not necessarily reflect value to the user. Taking more time to accomplish one's goal (e.g., obtain information) than necessary may improve engagement metrics from the service's perspective, but from the user's perspective, that's extra time that might have been wasted and better spent on other things.
  - manigandham 7y ago
    Maybe not value to each individual user, but in aggregate the numbers of users and content are increasing. Collective value and network effects are higher. This is also leading to more revenue which is critical for a corporation. I'm sure they lose some users but they've gained far more than they've lost so far.
- devmunchies 7y ago
  personally I've probably spent an hour on Reddit in the last year. I used to spend a couple hours a day. After it modernized I realized it was just facebook for introverts and bailed.
- rolltiide 7y ago
  user engagement increases with frustration. the A/B test isn't telling you that users like something, only that its taking them longer and they didn't bounce.
- opencl 7y ago
  Where did you find these numbers? From what I've seen Reddit never released any sort of metrics other than saying one specific Audi ad campaign did like 10x better or something. And Alexa showed lower traffic, higher bounce rate, fewer pageviews per visitor after the redesign[1]. [1] https://i.imgur.com/6dMCwoJ.png https://i.imgur.com/6dMCwoJ.png
- tzs 7y ago
  I wonder what will happen if they ever make old.reddit.com stop working? I've been on the new design, trying to give it a chance, for over a year trying to give it a chance, and I still have to often switch to old.reddit.com to do some things. 1. The new interface still doesn't have the "other discussions" link to show you discussions of the same link in other subreddits. I think they said something like a year ago that they realized this was important and it was coming soon. 2. The new interface messes up scrolling on Edge on my Surface Pro 4 when viewing a discussion. Actually, for this one you don't have to switch to old.reddit to work around. All you have to do is hit refresh. When you refresh while on a discussion, that switches from the view that shows the discussion in an overlay on top of the thread list, to a more traditional page that just has the discussion. That page doesn't fuck with scrolling. Depending on how much I plan on reading and how long the discussions are, I may or may not get annoyed enough with this to just give up and switch to old.reddit. (BTW, that discussion as overlay view also fucks up in-page search, because the thread list is still on the page, just hidden from your view--but not the browser's search functions--behind the discussion view, and so the search hits those hidden items). The only thing I can find in the new interface that is actually functionally better than the old interface is the fancy pants editor. Aside from selecting tools/commands not always always working if it has to put them on the "..." pop-up, and it sometimes losing the ability to scroll the text being edited via the mouse, the new editor is a win. If they would just put the new editor as an option on old Reddit, I think a lot of people would be happy.
TAForObvReasons 7y ago
The customers (ad buyers) come first, and I'd suspect the redesign improved those metrics
Throw_Away_6381 7y ago
I guess that is only the case for the HN bubble and a loud minority. Also, people are always complaining about UI changes. Personally, I prefer the re-design, even though it has a few flaws. The old design was awful.
optimuspaul 7y ago
I was going to say something just like this... but I think that the entire history of reddit UX has been terrible

Citing UX in a thread about Reddit, the company with an almost universally hated redesign that moved away from a mostly text-based condensed format is... interesting.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

manigandham 7y ago

Every user engagement metric has increased since the redesign. Unfortunate for some of us, and it doesn't preclude the metrics measuring the wrong thing, but that's reality on the ground. Same reason why Gmail is a bloated mess, because that's what the metrics show is wanted by users.

AnIdiotOnTheNet 7y ago
> Every user engagement metric has increased since the redesign. Doesn't that just mean that users are spending more time on the site because it's so much more of a pain to get what they actually want out of it? Like, you could increase "user engagement" of a shopping mall by turning it into a labyrinth and rearranging the shops every day.
- otterley 7y ago
  Alas, Costco does just that (rearranges where things are) to improve "discoverability." Drives me nuts!
- manigandham 7y ago
  Reddit is a corporation with a large amount of VC investment. Profit is a primary goal, and engagement that shows more time and thus more revenue is exactly what they want.
  - ryandrake 7y ago
    It would have been more honest of them to come out and just admit “yea, this new design is terrible but it juices our metrics and makes us more money so deal with it if you want Reddit to survive.” Also, Protip: in case anyone still doesn’t know, go to old.reddit.com for the previous, better interface. Who knows how long it will be kept alive though.
    - realusername 7y ago
      > Also, Protip: in case anyone still doesn’t know, go to old.reddit.com for the previous, better interface. Who knows how long it will be kept alive though. I'm using an extension to automatically redirect to the old one. When the old site is gone, I will probably leave Reddit, the redesign is too unusable for me.
      - SN76477 7y ago
        Yep. I like HN but I miss the diversity of conversations. /r/synthesizers /r/starwarssleaks etc.
    - manigandham 7y ago
      The problem with that is assuming the new design is terrible for everyone. It very well could be that the majority do like it, and it's a vocal minority that complain.
      - inferiorhuman 7y ago
        The redesign is objectively terrible, adding megabytes of bloat to each page load for the sweet sweet ad revenue.
        manigandham 7y ago
        The whole point of the redesign is to remove full page loads. Why are you downloading the entire payload every time?
- ryanwaggoner 7y ago
  Not necessarily for social media where there’s an endless river of entertainment content. I doubt most people go to Reddit for any specific purpose or task they’re trying to accomplish as quickly as possible.
- ryacko 7y ago
  No, you can increase user engagement of a shopping mall by turning it into a Mobius strip. I don’t think most people know how to handle anything but an infinite scrolling page.
  - dralley 7y ago
    They could have accomplished that without the redesign. That's what reddit enhancement suite has done for ages.
- jmull3n 7y ago
  Ever been to Ikea?
  - adrianN 7y ago
    Ikea is a pretty much perfect shopping experience. It's the opposite of a labyrinth. There is exactly one path through the shop for people who want to just see everything and there are clearly marked shortcuts if you only want to see one area.
inferiorhuman 7y ago
Depends on how you define engagement. When you set all the videos to autoplay with sound of course users are going to be more engaged. They're either scrambling to figure out where that noise is coming from or "watching" the videos.
sha666sum 7y ago
When you aim for the lowest common denominator, you lose the users at the other end of the Bell curve.
otterley 7y ago
I don't disagree, but "engagement" does not necessarily reflect value to the user. Taking more time to accomplish one's goal (e.g., obtain information) than necessary may improve engagement metrics from the service's perspective, but from the user's perspective, that's extra time that might have been wasted and better spent on other things.
- manigandham 7y ago
  Maybe not value to each individual user, but in aggregate the numbers of users and content are increasing. Collective value and network effects are higher. This is also leading to more revenue which is critical for a corporation. I'm sure they lose some users but they've gained far more than they've lost so far.
devmunchies 7y ago
personally I've probably spent an hour on Reddit in the last year. I used to spend a couple hours a day. After it modernized I realized it was just facebook for introverts and bailed.
rolltiide 7y ago
user engagement increases with frustration. the A/B test isn't telling you that users like something, only that its taking them longer and they didn't bounce.
opencl 7y ago
Where did you find these numbers? From what I've seen Reddit never released any sort of metrics other than saying one specific Audi ad campaign did like 10x better or something. And Alexa showed lower traffic, higher bounce rate, fewer pageviews per visitor after the redesign[1]. [1] https://i.imgur.com/6dMCwoJ.png https://i.imgur.com/6dMCwoJ.png
tzs 7y ago
I wonder what will happen if they ever make old.reddit.com stop working? I've been on the new design, trying to give it a chance, for over a year trying to give it a chance, and I still have to often switch to old.reddit.com to do some things. 1. The new interface still doesn't have the "other discussions" link to show you discussions of the same link in other subreddits. I think they said something like a year ago that they realized this was important and it was coming soon. 2. The new interface messes up scrolling on Edge on my Surface Pro 4 when viewing a discussion. Actually, for this one you don't have to switch to old.reddit to work around. All you have to do is hit refresh. When you refresh while on a discussion, that switches from the view that shows the discussion in an overlay on top of the thread list, to a more traditional page that just has the discussion. That page doesn't fuck with scrolling. Depending on how much I plan on reading and how long the discussions are, I may or may not get annoyed enough with this to just give up and switch to old.reddit. (BTW, that discussion as overlay view also fucks up in-page search, because the thread list is still on the page, just hidden from your view--but not the browser's search functions--behind the discussion view, and so the search hits those hidden items). The only thing I can find in the new interface that is actually functionally better than the old interface is the fancy pants editor. Aside from selecting tools/commands not always always working if it has to put them on the "..." pop-up, and it sometimes losing the ability to scroll the text being edited via the mouse, the new editor is a win. If they would just put the new editor as an option on old Reddit, I think a lot of people would be happy.

TAForObvReasons 7y ago

The customers (ad buyers) come first, and I'd suspect the redesign improved those metrics

Throw_Away_6381 7y ago

I guess that is only the case for the HN bubble and a loud minority. Also, people are always complaining about UI changes. Personally, I prefer the re-design, even though it has a few flaws. The old design was awful.

optimuspaul 7y ago

I was going to say something just like this... but I think that the entire history of reddit UX has been terrible