As strange as Snapchat's UI is versus the standard mobile OS's UI guidelines, there's no denying their unorthodox UI has been wildly successful. There's definitely things to learn from their strategy.
Really? Every friend of mine complains about the UI. Just yesterday a group of friends (early 20's) were commiserating over how nothing in Snapchat made any sense and just doing something as simple as getting to your friends list was difficult and unintuitive, requiring a couple false starts where you use the wrong swipe and end up somewhere you didn't mean to.
What if I told you that was part of the genius design? This "frustrating design" forces curiosity out of users to discover the app for themselves and encourages them to share these features with friends further augmenting the network effect. Based on which semi-hidden features get shared/used the most, Snap can A/B test faster than you'd imagine.
That's indeed the myth, but even Evan disagrees with it or at least does no longer think that's for the best. From their Q3 earnings call (quoting Evan):
> The one thing that we have heard over the years is that Snapchat is difficult to understand or hard to use, and our team has been working on responding to this feedback. As a result, we are currently redesigning our application to make it easier to use. There is a strong likelihood that the redesign of our application will be disruptive to our business in the short term, and we don't yet know how the behavior of our community will change when they begin to use our updated application. We're willing to take that risk for what we believe are substantial long-term benefits to our business.
While I don't think the author thinks it forms an academic quality taxonomy anymore, I do like the ideas in "Players who Suits MUDs": http://mud.co.uk/richard/hcds.htm
Especially the idea that lack of friendly ux leads to more communication and cooperation between players. I don't think it's completely unreasonable that forcing network effects in "Mealsgate" (how do I even install pokemon go) might help form stronger network effects - which in turn is what surveillance machines/skinner boxes like snapchat needs in order to spread.
Snap's game is changing from getting people in the door to keeping them inside. No longer do they need that network effect to get people in the door -- they've escaped orbit. In fact, they're probably discovering that what worked for getting people in is also driving people out, and they've probably got someone with too much influence that is unwilling to accept that churn.
Yes, they can change their design for retention; do not expect it to work.
I don't think you've provided any real evidence that it was specifically the design and UI that sold people on the app. I started using Snapchat right around their peak demo, 17/18, and I remember jumping on board because it was letting me do something other social media apps weren't, not because it was hard to use. The ephemeral nature of the content was exactly what I and my peers looked for in a landscape dominated by public-persona builders like Facebook, we didn't gravitate towards it because of the design.
You forget in your arguments about 'network' that literally every teenager uses the thing. There is no exclusivity, no special bond between users. Your entire high school would be plugged into the app.
That's kind of a cute idea, but again the overwhelming consensus between the friends I was talking to was "this app sucks". One said they use the app infrequently because of this, and I know personally I try to NEVER discover anything, because any time I do a different action I end up somewhere I didn't want to be, usually with an ad shoved in my face.
It just doesn't work the way you described. Frustration will never equal curiosity in users minds. Not saying Snapchat didn't try to get the curiosity angle, but that if they did they failed.
Supposedly that's why its been successful. Or at least that's what the HN crowd tells me why teenagers like the app.
Personally, I don't buy it. Snapchat still manages to onboard new users who eventually learn how to use the app despite all its shortcomings, because people really want to use Snapchat. Having 'good UX' is just a shortcut for having people inside your app who aren't as committed to it.