Snapchat’s New Update Triggers Revolt by Millions of Teens | Hacker News Reader

Snapchat’s New Update Triggers Revolt by Millions of Teens

thedailybeast.com

> One of Snapchat’s biggest criticisms has been that the app is too complicated to use.

> While the majority of Snapchat’s young userbase could navigate the product just fine, older users struggled to comprehend the layout.

Ok, so younger users are better at adapting to new and unusual interfaces.

> Hundreds if not thousands of teens lost their streaks, some of which had been maintained for hundreds of days, because they were confused at how to send snaps using the new interface.

Hmm...

As someone who uses the app daily: the update blows.

If you don't use the app I'll probably lose you here, but:

1) The main page is so much more cluttered. I don't need to see someone's bitmoji or a tiny preview of their story.

2) There was something satisfying about being able to clear all the stories on the story page. With stories on the main page now, this satisfaction is basically gone. A major misstep by SC imo. They should have latched on to me being addicted to looking at all my friends' stories. I'm using the app more.

3) Finally, and this is what makes the least sense to me, is that now I never have a reason to go to the second page and see all those stupid "trending stories". My click % on those is all but 0 now, where as before, when I had to look at them to see my friends' stories, I would sometimes find one of them interesting and click to read.

That last one isn't really a complaint, as I don't have to see those stories now, but just doesn't make sense.

I'd like to see a discussion of this by people who understands social networks better than me. Facebook updates have been meet with similar backlash and usually result in more user acceptance long term. Is that because they are tweaked to meet expectations or the users get used to them?

It sounds like they choose to deemphasize streaks and a lot of users really love that feature.

Is there a better way to handle this sort of rollout?

Any UI change large enough to be an overhaul is likely to get the same kind of reaction as people go through whatever learning curve there is to using the new interface. Overtime people just get used to it and the new interface becomes the interface. Admittedly I wasn't scrutinizing the whole rollout of the several bemoaned Facebook overhauls but I don't really remember them really changing much of the design once it was pushed out.

I think we're seeing a more intense backlash because the core Snapchat product doesn't exist in a vacuum anymore. Instagram has crafted a superior UX for the same use case(s).

My gut says that the redesign is primarily a reaction to Instagram's product, not to meet the "needs" of it's users.

It's too bad they didn't roll out the UI as a feature. Allowing users to opt-in or opt-out. That way users could tinker with it and not lose their streaks, and learn the new UI before the _real_ rollout.

The mismanagement of Snap is so absurd. This company is going to end in a fiery scorched earth death.

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