Reddit's redesign increases power usage of user's devices • Hacker News Board

Re: Reddit's redesign increases power usage of user's devices

#141

Post by stephengillie » Thu, May 17, 2018, 3:01 AM UTC

stcredzero wrote: post #139

stephengillie wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Users and UX somewhere will be thrown under the bus. The question is - will it be a heavily used multi-million dollar valuation site, or will it be a rarely-used development site? A big part is the blur between toy and product. We disregard end-users as "sheeple" while simultaneously receiving gratification from their auth count.

Users and UX somewhere will be thrown under the bus. I call BS. If you're moving to a new UI framework, these are usually powerful enough to emulate the old UI. Getting the new framework to feel as snappy as the old UI is a very good benchmark for performance as well as for feature parity. (They usually have more features, but there might be some corner-case overlooked.) The question is - will it be a heavily used mu…

Do the developers, administrators, management, and owners of any given website consider the needs of users like yourself?

In their place, would you? How much money would it make for you to think about your users, and how much would it cost you?

Re: Reddit's redesign increases power usage of user's devices

#142

Post by stcredzero » Thu, May 17, 2018, 3:02 AM UTC

djangowithme wrote: post #140

frfl wrote: post #22

Anyone from reddit's dev team reading this? Or youtube's dev team, because my question applies to both. The previous design was great. The new version of both sites is slow, sluggish and provides me with no benefit. Why was the change implemented? The previous design wasn't broken! How's the user feedback? A/B testing really indicated to you this was a good choice?! If you have any insight -- I'm sure this was a deci…

I've recently come to this tough realization myself after seeing what a mess javascript heavy apps can create. I'm sure theres some way to do it "right", but I felt like building a js clientside app inherently put me behind where static sites where starting. The solution? Server side rendering through next.js, same code via redux+react-router+react.

I'm sure theres some way to do it "right", but I felt like building a js clientside app inherently put me behind where static sites where starting.

For a long standing production app, my suggestion is to start with a plan for a better layout/architecture in your fancy new framework, but start by emulating the old UI. The new framework is often flexible and powerful enough to do this. If it isn't, then I might question its validity.

Re: Reddit's redesign increases power usage of user's devices

#143

Post by ploggingdev » Thu, May 17, 2018, 3:06 AM UTC

frfl wrote: post #22

Anyone from reddit's dev team reading this? Or youtube's dev team, because my question applies to both. The previous design was great. The new version of both sites is slow, sluggish and provides me with no benefit. Why was the change implemented? The previous design wasn't broken! How's the user feedback? A/B testing really indicated to you this was a good choice?! If you have any insight -- I'm sure this was a deci…

Steve Huffman was asked about the reason for the redesign and he said that it was necessary since users who visit reddit for the first time are completely lost and one of the reasons for this was the design. They hope the new design will make reddit more approachable for new users.

I think it comes to down to the growth at all costs mindset of being a VC funded company. Besides the point mentioned above, I think the new design allows them to increase their engagement numbers :

- they heavily push users to install the mobile apps to the point that it's annoying

- the new design lends itself better to native ads

- they started autoplaying videos and gifs on mobile for some users

- when I browse from a desktop without logging in, I noticed that threads now have a "related content" suggestions after the first few comments (I don't remember seeing this previously. Correct me if I'm wrong on this)

- they introduced new profile pages which make the site into more of a social network. Users can now follow other users, post to their own timeline etc.

- they started collecting more user data (for ad targeting) and have reset users' tracking preferences at least twice so far. Related links [0] [1]

Hopefully they start taking user feedback more seriously.

[0] https://www.reddit.com/r/privacy/comments/73259t/reddit_secr...

[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/stopadvertising/comments/87d1sq/psa...

Re: Reddit's redesign increases power usage of user's devices

#144

Post by Harkins » Thu, May 17, 2018, 3:14 AM UTC

deathanatos wrote: post #80

frfl wrote: post #22

Anyone from reddit's dev team reading this? Or youtube's dev team, because my question applies to both. The previous design was great. The new version of both sites is slow, sluggish and provides me with no benefit. Why was the change implemented? The previous design wasn't broken! How's the user feedback? A/B testing really indicated to you this was a good choice?! If you have any insight -- I'm sure this was a deci…

The new design hasn't worked . In particular, when browsing a subreddit, the first page or so of posts will load, but that's it. The "Next" button that used to take you to the next page is gone, which rather limits what you can view. I think its supposed to be infinite scrolling, but that simply hasn't worked, if that's what is supposed to happen. Make it work. Make it fast (or pretty). That order.

The search engine broke, too. Maybe it's it's having a negative term like "javascript -npm" or searching only a single subreddit, but changing "www" to "old" in the url often takes a search from zero results to hundreds.

And that's on top of how much slower it is, how it starts with a sidebar covering the page, janky lightbox scrolling, fixed headers covering the page, autoplay everything, etc. Search and other major features don't work.

Re: Reddit's redesign increases power usage of user's devices

#145

Post by skellera » Thu, May 17, 2018, 3:15 AM UTC

ploggingdev wrote: post #143

frfl wrote: post #22

Anyone from reddit's dev team reading this? Or youtube's dev team, because my question applies to both. The previous design was great. The new version of both sites is slow, sluggish and provides me with no benefit. Why was the change implemented? The previous design wasn't broken! How's the user feedback? A/B testing really indicated to you this was a good choice?! If you have any insight -- I'm sure this was a deci…

Steve Huffman was asked about the reason for the redesign and he said that it was necessary since users who visit reddit for the first time are completely lost and one of the reasons for this was the design. They hope the new design will make reddit more approachable for new users. I think it comes to down to the growth at all costs mindset of being a VC funded company. Besides the point mentioned above, I think the…

I refuse to use the mobile site because of auto playing videos. I have limited data and I consider it unforgivable for them to cost me money without my consent.

It only had to happen once for me to decide this.

Re: Reddit's redesign increases power usage of user's devices

#146

Post by gcb0 » Thu, May 17, 2018, 3:21 AM UTC

ploggingdev wrote: post #143

frfl wrote: post #22

Anyone from reddit's dev team reading this? Or youtube's dev team, because my question applies to both. The previous design was great. The new version of both sites is slow, sluggish and provides me with no benefit. Why was the change implemented? The previous design wasn't broken! How's the user feedback? A/B testing really indicated to you this was a good choice?! If you have any insight -- I'm sure this was a deci…

Steve Huffman was asked about the reason for the redesign and he said that it was necessary since users who visit reddit for the first time are completely lost and one of the reasons for this was the design. They hope the new design will make reddit more approachable for new users. I think it comes to down to the growth at all costs mindset of being a VC funded company. Besides the point mentioned above, I think the…

are you a redit PR? honest question.

my personal experience with the old site: slow, nothing works, even on wifi interaction is awful, broken cache headers make the index reload everytime I pressed back from an image (which you never knows if it will open the dhtml preview or change the page url to a jpg) and every time you click the first link, a modal popular tells me that I'd be hapier with the app.

the new site: absolutely the same, but somehow even slower (and it was already the top slower site!) with slightly larger images. plus a broken login flow.

i am pretty sure the only users to ever visit that site a second time on a mobile phone did so clicking a link by mistake. either they got the app or bounced.

Re: Reddit's redesign increases power usage of user's devices

#147

Post by graeme » Thu, May 17, 2018, 3:42 AM UTC

robbomacrae wrote: post #113

frfl wrote: post #22

Anyone from reddit's dev team reading this? Or youtube's dev team, because my question applies to both. The previous design was great. The new version of both sites is slow, sluggish and provides me with no benefit. Why was the change implemented? The previous design wasn't broken! How's the user feedback? A/B testing really indicated to you this was a good choice?! If you have any insight -- I'm sure this was a deci…

I'm reading! First off the linked post wasn't a very fair analysis and redditors pointed that out in the comments. But to answer your questions: The previous design wasn't broken per se but it wasn't particularly user friendly. Whilst there are plenty of redditors who are used to the layout, a lot of potential users (first time visitors) never came back and became redditors - including many people I tried to introduc…

I think the old reddit is one of the most useable sites on the internet. I spend a lot of time there because it's a lot more functional and text oriented than other sites.

Did the design team consider that reddit's core user base likes the old design and may be there because of it?

i.e. The redesign may be more pleasing to non-redditors, but displeasing to the site's actual users. Did you test on regular users or just new users?

Re: Reddit's redesign increases power usage of user's devices

#148

Post by mrep » Thu, May 17, 2018, 3:44 AM UTC

Harkins wrote: post #144

deathanatos wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The new design hasn't worked . In particular, when browsing a subreddit, the first page or so of posts will load, but that's it. The "Next" button that used to take you to the next page is gone, which rather limits what you can view. I think its supposed to be infinite scrolling, but that simply hasn't worked, if that's what is supposed to happen. Make it work. Make it fast (or pretty). That order.

The search engine broke, too. Maybe it's it's having a negative term like "javascript -npm" or searching only a single subreddit, but changing "www" to "old" in the url often takes a search from zero results to hundreds. And that's on top of how much slower it is, how it starts with a sidebar covering the page, janky lightbox scrolling, fixed headers covering the page, autoplay everything, etc. Search and other major…

Their search is so bad it cannot even find subreddits when I type it in word for word perfectly. I'm shocked they threw all this money into a redesign when they haven't even implemented the most basic of search implementations.

Re: Reddit's redesign increases power usage of user's devices

#149

Post by ploggingdev » Thu, May 17, 2018, 3:45 AM UTC

gcb0 wrote: post #146

ploggingdev wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Steve Huffman was asked about the reason for the redesign and he said that it was necessary since users who visit reddit for the first time are completely lost and one of the reasons for this was the design. They hope the new design will make reddit more approachable for new users. I think it comes to down to the growth at all costs mindset of being a VC funded company. Besides the point mentioned above, I think the…

are you a redit PR? honest question. my personal experience with the old site: slow, nothing works, even on wifi interaction is awful, broken cache headers make the index reload everytime I pressed back from an image (which you never knows if it will open the dhtml preview or change the page url to a jpg) and every time you click the first link, a modal popular tells me that I'd be hapier with the app. the new site:…

I'm just a reddit user, I don't work for the company.

Re: Reddit's redesign increases power usage of user's devices

#150

Post by profalseidol » Thu, May 17, 2018, 4:00 AM UTC

sorenjan wrote: post #103

frfl wrote: post #22

Anyone from reddit's dev team reading this? Or youtube's dev team, because my question applies to both. The previous design was great. The new version of both sites is slow, sluggish and provides me with no benefit. Why was the change implemented? The previous design wasn't broken! How's the user feedback? A/B testing really indicated to you this was a good choice?! If you have any insight -- I'm sure this was a deci…

I don't understand why modern websites need to be these javascript heavy single page apps. New Youtube is super slow, and if you scroll down to the comments under a video and then go back to your subscriptions you end up scrolled down and see old videos. New Reddit is awful, the only reason I can see for them to make it is busy work for all the new developers they hired after getting a large investment. Again, there'…

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