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Ask HN: Is “new” Reddit completely unusable for anyone else?

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Re: Ask HN: Is “new” Reddit completely unusable for anyone else?

#31

Post by kranner »

kgwxd wrote: post #25
hlandau wrote: post #14

The new design is godawful and unusable, especially without JavaScript. Switching to old.reddit.com is a breath of fresh air. The juxtaposition seems like an ideal case study in how bad modern web design is. I swear it's almost like web designers are trying to make things worse.

If you have an account, you can set your preferences to use the "old" design by default so you don't have to manually use old.reddit.com. Uncheck "Use the redesign as my default experience". If that option goes away, I'm done with reddit.

I’m sure an extension like Reddit Enhancement Suite will add the option if reddit stops supporting old.reddit.com.

Re: Ask HN: Is “new” Reddit completely unusable for anyone else?

#32

Post by lasagnaphil »

I think the UI design isn't that bad; I actually like the large thumbnails in the new UI better because I like to view a lot of art. But it's the performance that makes it disgustingly horrible - I wonder if someone made a sane desktop UI replacement for Reddit.

Re: Ask HN: Is “new” Reddit completely unusable for anyone else?

#33

Post by HNLurker2 »

cylinder714 wrote: post #5

If you're on a mobile device, try appending ".compact" to the URL to get the old mobile version. For example, " https://www.reddit.com/r/cooking/.compact"

We can make a bookmarklet that does that.

    javascript:window.location =".compact"

Re: Ask HN: Is “new” Reddit completely unusable for anyone else?

#36

Post by imustbeevil »

robin_reala wrote: post #21
hlandau wrote: post #14

The new design is godawful and unusable, especially without JavaScript. Switching to old.reddit.com is a breath of fresh air. The juxtaposition seems like an ideal case study in how bad modern web design is. I swear it's almost like web designers are trying to make things worse.

It’s not the designers’ fault, it’s developers seeing everything as a technology problem rather than a user needs problem (and I’m speaking as a developer). The best solution for any given problem is usually the simplest, at least until you find that you specifically need extra complexity to solve a user need. Unfortunately modern client-side development is fixed in a mindset of developer efficiency above all, which…

Even as a tech problem, the new UI puts less information on the screen and makes it harder to interact with. It's worse by every observable metric, and I can't imagine they have successful A/B testing, because every other site on the internet that does a redesign (Facebook, Twitter, Youtube) commits to it, and Reddit has allowed users to stay on old reddit for like a year now.

The weirdest thing is that successful alternative reddit UIs exist, so all they would have to do is incorporate the features people are using alternative UIs for. They did virtually the opposite of that. This is exactly what Digg did, and the solution for Digg wasn't "allow people to use old Digg", it was "Everyone left and went to reddit".

Re: Ask HN: Is “new” Reddit completely unusable for anyone else?

#37

Post by pjc50 »

Yes, but I eventually realised what it's optimised for: image posts. For some insane reason they're competing with Instagram and Reddit's co-evolved site Imgur, on which people read comments much less often.

They also really, really want you to use the mobile app, which presumably means it does something privacy-violating.

Re: Ask HN: Is “new” Reddit completely unusable for anyone else?

#38

Post by notadev »

>It boggles my mind that a redesign could be implemented so poorly on such a popular site.

The irony of this statement is that Reddit _really_ became popular when Digg, who was the top link sharing site at the time, rolled out a new clunky ad-friendly redesign that caused a mass exodus of users to Reddit.

Re: Ask HN: Is “new” Reddit completely unusable for anyone else?

#39

Post by HiroshiSan »

Yeah, this happens to me as well, I'll want to scroll when I have 5 minutes here or there and I'll run into the same problems. The reddit I knew and loved is gone, and it's filled with usability issues and politics all over.

As soon as the new redesign happened, I knew it was the first nail in a very large coffin. Reddit is going the way of the dodo and I'm not sure there could be anything to replace it with the way the internet seems to be going.

(I apologize for some very vague opinions as I haven't really dug deeper into these thoughts and so they're merely just feelings I have)

Re: Ask HN: Is “new” Reddit completely unusable for anyone else?

#40

Post by jumbopapa »

lasagnaphil wrote: post #32

I think the UI design isn't that bad; I actually like the large thumbnails in the new UI better because I like to view a lot of art. But it's the performance that makes it disgustingly horrible - I wonder if someone made a sane desktop UI replacement for Reddit.

They're are so many extensions that made old reddit far superior. Namely Reddit Enhancement Suit and Imagus (which is good for the large thumbnails you like)
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