I loath Reddit design, but fortunately redditisfun is a thing. No add views from me to Reddit, f them.
Reddit’s disrespectful design
441–450 of 516 posts
Re: Reddit’s disrespectful design
#442Does 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…
Have you tried https://old.reddit.com ?
Yes this is the way. What reddit has done to its own mobile experience is incredibly disrespectful, I couldn’t agree with this article more. Just... let me see your fucking ads?
Does anyone know a way on ios to forcibly redirect all reddit links to old.reddit.com?
Re: Reddit’s disrespectful design
#443Earlier quoted context omitted.
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-…
As a dev who works with telemetry in my day job I HATE when "better metrics" gets in the way of a feature or product improving. (I also hate the pervasiveness of identifiable tracking but that's a whole different rant.) You don't need to perfectly A:B test your two different offerings if that means preventing users from using the product in a way that best suits them. Stop putting shit behind "read more" buttons just…
Yeah, it becomes just about getting a "better metric" which is in fact a number that sounds better to others instead of using metrics to improve user experience.
Re: Reddit’s disrespectful design
#444Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
I'd assume it's going well. They aren't backing down in the slightest.
Re: Reddit’s disrespectful design
#445I 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 o…
> it works.
That's the thing. I don't doubt that it does. But certainly there are _other_ things that work as well that may or may not be as profitable but are certainly more ethical.
And that's basically what bugs me.
They don't seem to be in earnest trying to do anything else that might provide much more value.
> power users complain—and still continue using the site—but the casual user does not.
And that's what makes it worse. That's effectively exploiting the fact that most users are not well informed about privacy.
At the risk of sounding too hyperbolic, a similar but more nefarious example is that power users didn't fill in Cambridge Analytica's quizzes, but casual users did.
Re: Reddit’s disrespectful design
#446Earlier quoted context omitted.
For desktop, sure. I've tried a few mobile apps but the UI was worse than the mobile site in my opinion. I can deal with the UI of their mobile site, but all of the UX issues that OP mentioned keeps me away from it, so I never browse reddit on mobile devices. I just noticed a few users below mentioning that i.reddit.com exists, which seems to be a similar UI to old.reddit, but for mobile. From the couple minutes I've…
If you're on iOS, try https://apolloapp.io/ . Using it on an iPad has become my main way of accessing reddit. Super customizable, has keyboard shortcuts and supports pretty much all reddit features. The developer is also very active and quick to respond to bugs. (I know this is starting to sound like an advertisement which was not my intention, I just really enjoy using that app).
I tried appollo a while back and I was not a fan. My biggest gripe with the UI of appolo and post-redesigned reddit is that it feels like instagram or a facebook. I don't like endlessly scrolling through pictures and auto-playing videos since most of them are of no interest to me. If I want to view a picture/video I'll click on it. It clutters up the page with content I don't care about. Mobile browsing (for me at least) is already a slower and more tedious process because less items can be displayed on the screen at once than a full desktop version, and typing/navigating is considerably faster with a physical keyboard and mouse.
Re: Reddit’s disrespectful design
#447I 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 o…
I always think that by building products that treat the consumer like an enemy to be conquered will eventually result in someone building a better product and stealing the market. It never happens though. I wonder if some of the tech like Cloudflare Workers will eventually allow someone to build competing products that crush the existing platforms. IMO it’s dangerous (business wise) to get addicted to revenue that co…
> It never happens though.
I think it frequently happens. Reddit built a better Digg for instance. It's just that once the new companies supplant the existing ones they seem to start doing the same things.
Re: Reddit’s disrespectful design
#448I 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 o…
> I am responsible for ... AMP pages Why does Reddit use AMP pages and a mobile site that look exactly the same ? For speed/SEO benefits? Disabling AMP would still look mostly the same for normal Reddit users but would make "old." users much happier.
> For speed/SEO benefits
Almost definitely SEO.
Re: Reddit’s disrespectful design
#449Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think reddit did a rather clever thing in keeping around old.reddit.com. So power users got mad but they had a fallback, meanwhile the default experience is SPA dark pattern hell
For desktop, sure. I've tried a few mobile apps but the UI was worse than the mobile site in my opinion. I can deal with the UI of their mobile site, but all of the UX issues that OP mentioned keeps me away from it, so I never browse reddit on mobile devices. I just noticed a few users below mentioning that i.reddit.com exists, which seems to be a similar UI to old.reddit, but for mobile. From the couple minutes I've…
It's basically the biggest reason I stick with Opera on Android. It handles text wrapping on zoom so well, that I can use old desktop Reddit on a really tight phone without issue.
Re: Reddit’s disrespectful design
#450Imagine you’re Steve Huffman, Reddit’s CEO and co-founder ( https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/3cxedn/i_am_steve_huf... ). What strategy would you propose to your board? For the sake of argument, assume that: - You would prefer not to make your creation frustrating to use. (Of course, the team may think that their changes are better, but let’s assume that’s not the case) - The board cares about ARPU and ARPU grow…
So, of course my suggestion might seem naive given I don't have access to the numbers or knowing exactly the stack or employee numbers, etc. but it's a good exercise.
So:
I would basically copy Patreon in service of getting content creators paid.
In support of that:
1. A lot of the structure already exists so it shouldn't be a lot of work. For instance, there are already personal subreddits, there is already a payment gateway, there are coins that can be used for microtransactions, etc. I need to implement sub-only features and paying for individual content.
2. I can cite Patreon/OnlyFans etc revenue and MAU.
3. I can cite how many users have links to their Patreon/OnlyFans in their profiles. Beyond individual users I can make the case that organizations might want a piece of this too.
4. I believe in this vision which means I can sell it to the team, to the users and to the public better. It's also a positive vision around which people can rally.
5. Then I expend the rest of my political capital pushing this through and stake my job on it. I'd be OK doing that since I'd be doing something I really believe in.
6. If it doesn't work, there's two possibilities. Either it didn't work in a suitable time frame but there is traction in which case I can demonstrate that we are making progress and perhaps buy more time. Or it didn't work at all in which case I've failed at doing something I believed in.
7. If it does work then I've regained all my capital and much more. At which point I can go further into becoming a platform where content creators can get paid. Think Gumroad, TeeSpring, Etsy, etc.