[swearwolves]

Idk why everyone in here and on r/redesign can't take off their rose-colored glasses and admit that current (old?) Reddit has some pretty glaring usability issues.

I know I avoided Reddit for the longest time simply due to the fact that there was a learning curve at all...and I know many, many people that would adore Reddit actively avoid it because it's a little overwhelming and hard to use at first. People seem to really underestimate just how important that first couple of seconds on a new website are.

Granted, a lot of people pushed passed the quirks and the learning curve and grew to love the site we all know today - that's evident by the massive user base - but I just don't understand why everyone is so vehemently against a redesign effort when the site was clearly a hodgepodge.

Now, I'm not arguing that the current redesign is great and a smashing success, I think they're missing the mark on what made Reddit great in the first place...but to sit here and yell "If it ain't broke don't fix it" is laughable. The performance might be superb but the UX is atrocious, everyone has just learned to get over it.

[wyldfire]

> The performance might be superb but the UX is atrocious, everyone has just learned to get over it.

I guess I'm one of those. I've been using reddit since before they enabled comments. I love that it's remained simple and it works really well for me.

The only items I'd imagine improving on would be remembering collapsed threads (like HN does) and preserving a deeper history of threads I've seen (maybe opt-in if it bugs people).

What's the "learning curve" that you refer to? Voting and comments are pretty simple, right?

[TotempaaltJ]

I've had to explain Reddit to my mom--she wanted to see what her kids were so busy with all the time--I can tell you that voting comments aren't nearly as simple as they might seem.

Neither is the concept of subreddits, the difference between text and link posts, subreddit discovery, the community and culture... These were all hurdles that she needed to get through and at the end she gave it up. Too complicated.

The difference between her and most Reddit users is that she was determined to get active on Reddit: she kept trying for weeks.

The difference between her and most non-Reddit users is that she's quite tech-savvy. She worked in tech for 20 years. She fixes her friends' computer problems.

[wyldfire]

Well, if her experience is representative of other folks, then I suppose it is a problem. But is it one that a new interface could fix? I believe that it's possible, but it's not obvious to me how it would be improved. I'm not experienced at all in UI/UX design.

> The difference between her and most Reddit users is that she was determined to get active on Reddit: she kept trying for weeks.

I don't understand -- she persisted and others who use reddit don't/didn't? Meaning they don't need to apply significant effort and she did? Does that mean that it's somehow intuitive to them and not her? I feel like I am missing the point you're making.

[swearwolves]

> But is it one that a new interface could fix? I believe that it's possible, but it's not obvious to me how it would be improved.

A new interface could fix a lot of the issues, but I think the jury is still out on whether or not the current redesign is fixing those issues.

In my opinion, the higher level concepts of subreddits and subreddit discoverability are one of the main hurdles that brand new users have to understand and overcome. Most people that don't know anything about Reddit just assume it's a massive forum of people posting random shit - and don't bother going much further than that.

I think the new sidebar and the overhauled search are a great start at making the browsing experience much more intuitive - but the new profiles and messenger are all questionable design decisions that feel a lot less "Reddit" and a lot more "Facebook".

[seanalltogether]

Looking at the samples they posted in /r/announcements, I'll be excited to try it out.

https://i.redditmedia.com/gbs_FDZ89LIg_RfJjYoIcD5c7X13DN32gy... https://i.redditmedia.com/W93a53ceOYUq3f28nx0mSPdmmj3FMkshDU... https://i.redd.it/ej52w79m4jp01.png

Right off the bat it appears that user account info lives outside the custom styling of each subreddit, this is a good thing and creates consistency for access to my stuff.

Secondly it looks like each subreddit gets to decide which view works best for the content of that subreddit. /r/askscience will benefit from a compact view, while /r/pics would benefit from a card view. As long as I'm able to change the default and have it stick next time i access that subreddit, I'm all for this.

[josefresco]

There are parallels to Craigslist/POF here. All 3 sites have a reputation for being ugly, and having glaring "usability issue" yet are extremely successful and resist even common-sense change.