This causes a lot of bad post-hoc rationalization from many startups that "Snapchat is a multibillion dollar startup, and they have these bad UX features, therefore if we have these X features we will be successful too!"
And thus the startup ecosystem as a whole gets dragged down.
AFAIK, every feature is explained on Snapchat's website. Also when new features are introduced, they've usually explained in the release notes on how to use them—like when lenses were first added.
Same for almost the entirety of apple products.
What gives?
Thinking of how our parents or grandparents might be able to use a computer just fine but they can't find their way around a flat mobile UI -- Is the Snapchat UI just a new paradigm that we old people don't get? 10 years from now, will this kind of UI design be pervasive?
What if UIs are evolving and we're being left behind?
I personally like the UI/UX, and think it's advanced. I'm incorporating some of its elements in my own work. I for one am pretty tired of lists, lists, and more lists. I've read somewhere that the UI/UX was built in a 'Japanese style'. I dont know if that's true but it's interesting.
I think where there's room for improvement is just introducing the features and explaining how the unconventional navigation works.
Then I asked a 16-year-old niece if she finds it intuitive, and, no, she was as baffled by it as I am. So it's just bad UX. I've spent the three minutes acquainting myself with it since, so now I can use it fine, but yeah, it's definitely bad UX.
Consider that it may be intentional, a way for Snapchat to avoid the Eternal September issue where parents and older people signup as part of a second or third wave of users.
I watched my younger group of brothers and relatives move from Facebook and then Instagram as parents, uncles, aunts, teachers, grandparents etc. signed up to each service.
They're hoping they won't have to move on from Snapchat and can remain more candid there.
Once you know how to use it though, it's pretty cool.
It seemed like it was done originally by somebody with bad UX skills - or else it was intentional to piss off older people and let the kids have their own thing..?!
For example, aside from the traditional way of adding a friend, you can point your camera, in Snapchat, at someone else's phone displaying the profile screen, and it will automatically add them as a friend. Only one other person I've met has known about it before I told them (and they're the ones that told me).
The UI also is just generally clumsy or buggy. Another example, just some of my gripes about the part of the app where you can text chat with people:
You get a push notification that "X is typing" whenever someone begins writing a message to you, even if they don't send a message. Every few days I get one of these notifications when a friend accidentally began typing to me instead of someone else.
They've replaced the "send" button on the keyboard with a button that livestreams your camera to that person. Quite a surprise the first time you're chatting and you're only in your underwear.
You have to hold one of your fingers on the screen the entire time you're video chatting. And you change between the front and back-facing camera based on where on the screen you are holding your finger.
I actually really like Snapchat, it's the only social network/app I use regularly, but damn does the app suck.
Swiping to move between screens (there's only 4 main views) is very fluid and easy to navigate.