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Reddit’s disrespectful design

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Re: Reddit’s disrespectful design

#201

Post by SilasX »

MaxBarraclough wrote: post #156
tfsh wrote: post #108

It constantly amazes me how bad Reddit's interface is, videos either don't play or randomly start playing despite them not being in the viewport. They run random A|B experiments which add unnecessary components such as avatars next to peoples comments. Random acts of monetization are shoved down my throat at every turn. I honestly think the Reddit team are on a purpose built mission to design the most user hostile fo…

Seconded. The old.reddit.com UI is still pretty bad on mobile, but it's the only remotely usable one. The default mobile site goes out of its way to make it difficult to read the thread, while also confusingly merging other threads into the page.

Yes (about old version on mobile). It has annoyances like how, on iOS, double-tap-to-zoom only occasionally works.

And as for videos, if you scroll down, it will hog precious real estate at the top to keep showing the video with only a tiny X at the corner that's hard to click (because iOS will misinterpret it as asking to show the URL bar and options).

And I really don't think any UX designer has even looked at any of the mobile versions in landscape mode (haven't checked if the app even allows it). I suspect they haven't looked at the torrent of modals assaulting you either.

Oh and I was opted out of the old design like three times yesterday.

Edit: For an example of something even worse, Quora (on iOS safari) has been stuck on a permanent "something went wrong" for months. I have to view it on desktop.

Edit2: Sorry, one more update. Even on the old design, when you try to report a comment, it's somehow inserted a new style for picking the reason for reporting ... which breaks my extention's (Tridacty's) ability to pick it up as a clickable link from the keyboard. Why??? You just had to leave it alone!

Re: Reddit’s disrespectful design

#202

Post by jlokier »

ahtihn wrote: post #85
WORMS_EAT_WORMS wrote: post #78

There was a time when Google search would punish sites like this… enable competition… reward smaller sites… I really wish Google would start de-ranking behavior like this.

Does anyone end up on reddit through google searches?

Yes, I only end up on Reddit via Google searches, looking for the answer to a question.

Then when looking at the discussion from the search result, I'll sometimes see other topics that look interesting.

Unfortunately the web experience is so offputting, and so weirdly discontinuous, that it's hard to stick around and enjoy it. It's high friction and reminds me how much time I'm wasting by it being so clunky. Other interesting places are easier to get into without the same feeling.

The way the other topics shown (that aren't the answer to my question) are the most recent ones is offputting as well. It means no context around the time of the discussion I was looking at, no chance of seeing related discussions from the tine, and if I land in the same subreddit from multiple searches, no variety to show me why the subreddit is interesting.

So I've never felt interested enough to stick around and create a Reddit account, and my only visits are from Google searches that occasionally land on Reddit.

Re: Reddit’s disrespectful design

#203

Post by fastball »

Everything about Reddit's (visible) engineering is terrible these days.

The new React app UI is probably one of the least performant React apps I've ever seen / experienced. Turn on the re-render track in React DevTools and watch as simply upvoting a single post on your page causes every component to re-render.

However they're delivering video/images to clients is the worst I've seen in a long time. Videos constantly buffer in ridiculous ways, you can barely scrobble, and images load in more slowly than anywhere else on the web. Honestly browsing Reddit in 2021 makes me feel like I'm back on dial-up.

Sorry anyone here that's a Reddit engineer but something is going terribly wrong over there.

Re: Reddit’s disrespectful design

#205

Post by BeFlatXIII »

Old Reddit and RES were the only things that kept Reddit tolerable. Even then, I still got bored of the community in the subreddits I was subscribed to and left. Perhaps I ought to spend the rest of my Gold credits I bought in 2014 before actually deleting my account.

Re: Reddit’s disrespectful design

#206

Post by neither_color »

RosanaAnaDana wrote: post #135

Reddit has completely jumped the shark in its UI design, the 'direction' its taken, and its basically complete capitulation to censorship at a corporate level. Its interesting to that they haven't IPO'd yet, because in my view, its a zombie carcass waiting for its replacement to find its way onto the net. There has always been a place, a need, and a demand for anonymous, free form discussions on the internet. Craigsl…

>complete capitulation to censorship at a corporate level.

sigh

I would still use Reddit and put up with all the bad UI design and dark patterns if it wasn't for the censorship. I miss the pre-2016 election reddit when it was still full of pedantic types who would have long debates in comment threads where they would break each other's arguments down line by line. I wasn't strongly in favor of one belief or another, but it taught me a lot about forming arguments and persuasive writing that English classes never taught me. Back in those days you would still see productive debates between left-wing and libertarian types. Now with all the gold and comment badges discussion has devolved down to who can make the wittiest, snarkiest one liner that will get them rewarded.

Re: Reddit’s disrespectful design

#207

Post by wting »

I was the EM for Reddit's Growth team around this time. I am responsible for / contributed to a few features like the current signup flow, AMP pages, push notifications, email digests, app download interstitials, etc.

There was a new product lead who joined with many good ideas, but some of them were dark patterns that I heavily protested. After a few months of this, it was obvious that I was going to be reigned in or let go[0]; I immediately transferred to a different org.

Now let me explain the other side of the story. 4 years later, Reddit's DAU, MAU, and revenue have all grown at ridiculous rates[1]. Yes, power users complain—and still continue using the site—but the casual user does not. These dark patterns have been normalized on other websites.

These practices are done because it works.

_____

0: They changed it so I would report to the product lead, which is odd for an EM to report into a product chain and the only instance within the company ever.

1: Many friends are startup founders and I've been at a few startups myself—a byproduct of being in the Bay Area—and Reddit's growth numbers are impressive. As a former employee, I am quite happy about my equity growth.

Re: Reddit’s disrespectful design

#208

Post by PossiblyKyle »

tgsovlerkhgsel wrote: post #148

While not disclosing that e-mail is optional is a dark pattern, it's still better than what almost every other site does, which is making it a hard requirement. Another dark pattern on Reddit is that the web version only allows you to open content in their app. If you already have a compatible third party reddit app installed, "open in app" just sends you to the Play store. (Normal behavior is that if you have an app…

From what I know, reddit is not entirely to blame on its own on this. Apple's policy only lets the first party app open certain domains, like YouTube (please correct me if I'm mistaken) and Twitter. Overall, a decent workaround is an app called Opener (link to follow) which lets you switch to specific apps from the share sheet. Apollo also has this feature for reddit links specifically.

However, I do agree that reddit's behavior beyond that is obnoxious.

Opener link: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/opener-open-links-in-apps/id98...

Re: Reddit’s disrespectful design

#209

Post by maest »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #141
throwaway284534 wrote: post #82

Does anyone else want to rant about Reddit’s AMP pages that show up on Google? Oh I could go on about it… The managers at Reddit, in their infinite wisdom, decided that the preferred experience of a Google user searching for content on reddit should redirected to their wonky app. And if they don’t have the app, they should be punished with modals upon modals. “Reddit looks better in the app!” Oh, you disagree? Well p…

The Reddit mobile web experience is so obviously bad that I can only assume it's intentional. There must be some huge incentive for Reddit to push users toward the mobile app. Most likely, the app allows for higher or more accurate monthly active user counts and enables more targeted advertising, both of which are critical to increasing advertising revenues. Reddit is in a difficult spot because they're mostly an ad-…

If the changes are driven by their investor's desire to somehow monetise it, then this must be part of a longer term plan. So two questions:

1. How well is this working for them 2. If the answer to 1. is "not very", how long will they stick to this strategy.

They've been going at it for a couple of years now, so I imagine they're approaching the moment when they have to reassess how well things are going.

I wonder if we'll see a change of direction any time soon.

Re: Reddit’s disrespectful design

#210

Post by intrasight »

OminousWeapons wrote: post #103
wongarsu wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

old.reddit.com is not mobile optimized at all, but still infinitely better than reddit.com. Alternatively, get one of the non-official apps (on Android I use rif).

old.reddit.com with javascript turned off is largely fine if you just lurk and don't want to go 20 layers deep into the comments.

Just this week they changed "visit old reddit" to be under a "more" item in the menu. I am concerned that this is the first step to removing it for good. I don't know how to get my interaction data except on old reddit.
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