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Reddit's redesign could kill discussion subreddits

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Re: Reddit's redesign could kill discussion subreddits

#251

Post by sushid »

mprev wrote: post #234
TeMPOraL wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course it's about monetization. There's a difference between how Reddit-the-company (and its investors) view the site, and how its users do. It's like with cafés - visitors likes them quiet, and would very much enjoy having an electrical outlet near the table (to charge up phone) and even free Wi-Fi. But cafés aren't in business of making peoples' life better and more enjoyable, they're in business of selling coff…

Genuinely interested to know where in the world the cafes are like that.

Maybe not in the suburbs but it's definitely the case in SF. Try Sightglass in Soma for instance. Loud, no internet, no outlets at all.

Or Coffee Bar in Potrero. They have no laptop sections and possibly the slowest internet speed I've ever seen.

They don't make the experience tortuous but it's not the most pleasant experience either.

Re: Reddit's redesign could kill discussion subreddits

#252

Post by shostack »

virmundi wrote: post #216
Aoyagi wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And yet so few of the designers consider dark/black colour themes, which are not only more easier on the eyes, but also notably save the battery.

Dark themes are worse for the eyes, https://ux.stackexchange.com/questions/53264/dark-or-white-c... Don't know about battery life. I guess if it's AMOLED, https://www.greenbot.com/article/2834583/how-much-power-does...

Maybe, but I wonder if that is true at night with the lights off. When I read in bed at night, I much prefer light on dark text. Combined with Android's night mode to tint things red, it is fantastic.

In fact, I wish the Kindle Paperwhite would come out with an inverted mode already (although I think I read there were some challenges with doing so). It can be fairly straining on my eyes to have the sidelit screen bright enough to be legible while being as dim as possible to make reading with the lights off comfortable.

Re: Reddit's redesign could kill discussion subreddits

#253

Post by shostack »

teddyfrozevelt wrote: post #156
Redoubts wrote: post #149

All I wanted to see is what the comments section now looks like. It's literally the only thing I'm there for, and preview photos never show it. (My biggest complaint with many HN app previews too) Of course, when I try the preview myself, I'm greeted with this: https://imgur.com/a/PvRhk

Here's an example. https://imgur.com/a/RfioM

I'm not seeing any significant differences there. Am I missing something obvious?

Re: Reddit's redesign could kill discussion subreddits

#254

Post by Avery3R »

strifey wrote: post #215
joemi wrote: post #181

I don't get it. What exactly is changing? From the screenshots from the reddit post about it, it looks.... like reddit. There's posts and the posts have upvote/downvote buttons, and there's a link to the comments that shows how many there are. Am I missing something? The OP article doesn't actually have any screenshots of changes, and I made it several paragraphs into the article still not understanding what is chang…

You should be able to interact with the redesign directly at https://new.reddit.com . The main complaints I've seen leveled at the redesign are: user profiles becoming more like Facebook profiles, the new chat functionality missing core features, and the newly created "best" ranking becoming the default.

Best is the new default on the old UI too.

Re: Reddit's redesign could kill discussion subreddits

#255

Post by wetpaws »

dkns wrote: post #29
liotier wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On Android, use the "Reddit if fun" application - classic Reddit, fit for mobile: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.andrewshu....

Yeah but I don't want to use another app for that. I already have app for browsing Reddit - it's called web browser and I'd like to keep using it rather than downloading yet another app that does basically the same.

Reddit on web is unfortunately unusable, at least on mobile, due to how badly it was implemented

Re: Reddit's redesign could kill discussion subreddits

#256

Post by Bekwnn »

eduren wrote: post #250
strifey wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You should be able to interact with the redesign directly at https://new.reddit.com . The main complaints I've seen leveled at the redesign are: user profiles becoming more like Facebook profiles, the new chat functionality missing core features, and the newly created "best" ranking becoming the default.

"Best" has been the default comment ranking for years. I'm not surprised that it eventually worked its way into the front page posts. How it differs from "Hot" though is not clear to me. Maybe they try harder to show you fresh posts.

A while ago they made subs that a large number of people had blocked show up on the front page less. The change came about because certain small vocal communities would boost content to the front page that the rest of reddit hated.

Re: Reddit's redesign could kill discussion subreddits

#257

Post by orky56 »

shostack wrote: post #252
virmundi wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dark themes are worse for the eyes, https://ux.stackexchange.com/questions/53264/dark-or-white-c... Don't know about battery life. I guess if it's AMOLED, https://www.greenbot.com/article/2834583/how-much-power-does...

Maybe, but I wonder if that is true at night with the lights off. When I read in bed at night, I much prefer light on dark text. Combined with Android's night mode to tint things red, it is fantastic. In fact, I wish the Kindle Paperwhite would come out with an inverted mode already (although I think I read there were some challenges with doing so). It can be fairly straining on my eyes to have the sidelit screen bri…

Majority of reading is done in a brighter setting so many factors contribute to using dark text in white background. In the case of reading in the dark or low light settings, using a Kindle Paperwhite gets complicated since you want to make the background darker while still maintaining sufficient contrast to read the text which is always in a dark font color.

In the UX StackExchange post, it's stated that astigmatism is also a contributing factor to favor dark text on white background. I do believe that these night time settings should be toggled automatically for white text with dark background as well as accounting for blue wavelength reduction for screens with full colors.

Re: Reddit's redesign could kill discussion subreddits

#258

Post by orky56 »

dmix wrote: post #143

Purely from a user perspective I personally love the new Reddit design, I don't find it detracts much from the previous design at all. BUT I use a top-end Macbook Pro and I find the new design to be terribly slow and a performance hog, where it simply kills the UX. Once you open up 10 tabs (how I typically browse Reddit, by shift clicking each thread I want to read) I can hear my CPU fans kicking in. I had to tune Fi…

Agreed. The design aesthetic actually works but the technical overhead in implementing is the problem. HN works so well because not only does it prioritize information density but it consumes less resources. The Reddit redesign pushes thumbnails, infinite scroll, and a useless right sidebar.

Thumbnails waste space depending on the subreddit. Infinite scroll destroys the idea of a discrete "front page" which is core to Reddit being the front page of the Internet. In addition the infinite scroll makes no sense in the comments where on Mobile you can jump between top-level parent comments whereas on Desktop it's too busy loading child comments before you can get to the next top-level parent comment. The right sidebar is persistent and serves little purpose for a power user. The left sidebar which provides core navigation for a power user is useful when persistent but loads asynchronously with the middle, main content for it to be a consistent user experience.

Re: Reddit's redesign could kill discussion subreddits

#259

Post by chrisfrantz »

StellarTabi wrote: post #161

Two reasons why Reddit isn't "digg-ing" their own grave right now: 1. This change is much smaller and less destructive than digg's big change (although the long term effects can be just as destructive). 2. When Digg's redesign caused an exodus, Reddit was extremely well known as "that ugly digg clone" and "this digg link was on Reddit yesterday". Reddit doesn't have a well known established "number two" the way digg…

I think you’re right about the Facebook transition, especially with the design shifting to one more closely matching Facebook.

The dark horse, in my opinion, is spectrum.chat. It is fast, beautiful and being iterated on daily. It is also open source and open to feedback. The real time chat combines the best of discord and slack and the design is a step up from both of those and it.

It might not be a direct replacement to Reddit, but I think it could steal some traffic as it develops. Plus it is driven by a revenue model based on subscribers, not ads, sidestepping the current FB public relations issues.

Re: Reddit's redesign could kill discussion subreddits

#260

Post by skoocda »

msla wrote: post #172
2bitencryption wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You've painted a picture in my mind of Reddit as this massive blob connecting Discord, so-called "fringe communities", etc. It actually makes me appreciate Reddit a bit more -- it can be garbage, but it's also a bit of a centralized meeting place for so many smaller communities. Even if the bulk of those smaller communities doesn't take place on Reddit itself, they still flow through Reddit. Reddit is like the centra…

I dislike trying to talk about "The Reddit Community" for the same reason I'd dislike trying to talk about "The New York City Community" or "The Tokyo Community": You don't have a million-member community. You can talk about Dunbar's Number, you can talk about the simple fact nobody goes out and meets a million people even if they're all on the same website/within a half-mile radius of their home, but the result is t…

But these community members aren't insulated entirely, ever. A new account is always provided the same front page experience, due to default subscriptions, and most Redditors only add subreddits to that front page, never removing any. Even if they curate to an extreme level, the Popular feed is always the same for everyone. You need to manually override that feed with RES filters to eliminate content.

So I think it's valid to refer to "The Reddit Community", with some caution, because there is a familiarity with some of the same content, and an ability to relate in certain modes of thinking. The same way as "The Tokyo Community" generally familiar with Shibuya crossing, the local weather patterns, and behavioral expectations.

There's significant standard deviation, but also a commonality that enables a stronger connection to other members of the platform / city.

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