3 ms·

A lot of the reasons companies do redesigns is strategic. When a company first gets successful, it builds for the tastes, preferences, and needs of the userbas

A lot of the reasons companies do redesigns is strategic. When a company first gets successful, it builds for the tastes, preferences, and needs of the userbase at that time. And as it gets more successful, it progressively micro-optimizes for those tastes, so eventually the company and the users that made it successful are tightly intertwined. For a company to grow, it needs to attract new users. And tastes change, often surprisingly quickly. What was hot for new users in the early 2000s looks incredibly dated now - just check out old.reddit.com or search for [google in 1998] for examples. As someone entering my 40s who was in college or just out of it at the time, those UIs fill me with nostalgia. But someone who's in college now would be like "What is this shit?" As a side note, this is why HNers are generally terrible at predicting new product trends now, and tend to poo-poo a lot of things that are gaining remarkable traction. Most of us are in our 30s and 40s by now, a time when our habits are basically set and we have neither the time, energy, or social networks to tap into the cultural zeitgeist. To really get a sense of what captures peoples' energy, you need to be one of the people whose energy is captured (or at least watch them closely), which requires the lack of cynicism and judgment that comes with experience.

ryandrake 5y ago
I'm glad you used old.reddit.com as your example and you also almost nailed my age group (45+). As a user, I'd point to Reddit as the quintessential example of unnecessary change for the sake of change. To my elderly sensibilities, old.reddit.com is better in every single way than the new travesty. Loads faster, less janky, nothing jumping around as content loads, no autoplaying, denser presentation, fills the browser window as I maximize it--by the way this is my #1 bugaboo with "modern" web design: stop constraining content to a tiny vertical strip in the center of the damn browser!!! I have a 27" monitor and I want to use the whole thing goddamnit. So from the point of view of an end user like me, they took something great and ruined everything. I can't imagine that a 25 year old likes the new design better, but then again I can't put myself into the shoes of a 25 year old, so maybe they love jank, autoplaying videos, and constant pop-ups begging them to log in or use the app. I'm sure from the point of view of Reddit however, the new design is awesome in all ways they measure. Probably revenue, "engagement" (ugggghhhh I hate that word), time on site (thanks to infinite scrolling), whatever it is they find important and prioritize. I can tell you they don't prioritize "usable by a 45 year old with disposable income".
- ajmurmann 5y ago
  > stop constraining content to a tiny vertical strip in the center of the damn browser I had assumed this general tend was to work well on mobile, yet Reddit couldn't do more to make it unbearable to use the website on mobile instead of their app. Constant popups to harass you into using the mobile app
  - necovek 5y ago
    Good design for readability suggest using line lengths which are around 60-70 characters long (at least in print with serif fonts). My main gripe with narrow columns of content is that they rarely resize properly to smaller desktop sizes (I prefer side-by-side-by-side windows on my large 32" screen, so much that I am considering switching to new 42" oled screens showing up this year — if they were 8k and I had a gpu to drive it, I'd be ecstatic ;)).
- nostrademons 5y ago
  On the few occasions I've talked to 20-25 year olds about Reddit and they happen to know about old.reddit.com, they're like "Wow that looks dated. And boring." All the other sites that young people actually use (TikTok, Instagram, YouTube) look like the new Reddit version, and these sites are actually getting new users organically. Given that, I think it's fair to say that jank, autoplaying videos, and constant pop-ups are in. I'll chalk this up to "Kids these days." I'm of similar vintage to you, maybe a few years younger. I don't really like this trend either, and use old.reddit.com when I can. But you and I don't matter. Our consumption habits are already set, and realistically a start-up (particularly a mass media one) that we don't already patronize isn't going to get them. Businesses battle over the margins, the customers who don't already have buying habits, and fight aggressively to get them.

ryandrake 5y ago

I'm glad you used old.reddit.com as your example and you also almost nailed my age group (45+). As a user, I'd point to Reddit as the quintessential example of unnecessary change for the sake of change. To my elderly sensibilities, old.reddit.com is better in every single way than the new travesty. Loads faster, less janky, nothing jumping around as content loads, no autoplaying, denser presentation, fills the browser window as I maximize it--by the way this is my #1 bugaboo with "modern" web design: stop constraining content to a tiny vertical strip in the center of the damn browser!!! I have a 27" monitor and I want to use the whole thing goddamnit. So from the point of view of an end user like me, they took something great and ruined everything. I can't imagine that a 25 year old likes the new design better, but then again I can't put myself into the shoes of a 25 year old, so maybe they love jank, autoplaying videos, and constant pop-ups begging them to log in or use the app. I'm sure from the point of view of Reddit however, the new design is awesome in all ways they measure. Probably revenue, "engagement" (ugggghhhh I hate that word), time on site (thanks to infinite scrolling), whatever it is they find important and prioritize. I can tell you they don't prioritize "usable by a 45 year old with disposable income".

ajmurmann 5y ago
> stop constraining content to a tiny vertical strip in the center of the damn browser I had assumed this general tend was to work well on mobile, yet Reddit couldn't do more to make it unbearable to use the website on mobile instead of their app. Constant popups to harass you into using the mobile app
- necovek 5y ago
  Good design for readability suggest using line lengths which are around 60-70 characters long (at least in print with serif fonts). My main gripe with narrow columns of content is that they rarely resize properly to smaller desktop sizes (I prefer side-by-side-by-side windows on my large 32" screen, so much that I am considering switching to new 42" oled screens showing up this year — if they were 8k and I had a gpu to drive it, I'd be ecstatic ;)).
nostrademons 5y ago
On the few occasions I've talked to 20-25 year olds about Reddit and they happen to know about old.reddit.com, they're like "Wow that looks dated. And boring." All the other sites that young people actually use (TikTok, Instagram, YouTube) look like the new Reddit version, and these sites are actually getting new users organically. Given that, I think it's fair to say that jank, autoplaying videos, and constant pop-ups are in. I'll chalk this up to "Kids these days." I'm of similar vintage to you, maybe a few years younger. I don't really like this trend either, and use old.reddit.com when I can. But you and I don't matter. Our consumption habits are already set, and realistically a start-up (particularly a mass media one) that we don't already patronize isn't going to get them. Businesses battle over the margins, the customers who don't already have buying habits, and fight aggressively to get them.