> - The new Reddit layout is borderline unusable. They will lose the rest of the core users when they disable the old. subdomain
While I agree with you here, there is also a point that it might attract new and younger users with its more 'modern' look.
Personally I like sites like HN or the old style wikipedia for its information density and out of the way design. But that might just be the age talking here. People that grow up now that mostly scroll by touching the screen with their fingers have other requirements and ideas about good UI.
I doubt age has anything to do with it (unless you imply younger people prefer shitty interfaces) since Reddit's new site is awful even on mobile. I always switch to i.reddit.com not only because it is much faster, but also because the new layout just unusable with somehow combining both oversized (even for mobile standards) elements and tiny elements all over the place, needing a ton of taps to just read comments (which means you'll often mistap something and the slow loading takes ages), popups getting in the way, etc.
It plainly sucks.
At least unlike other sites, they have the decency to leave the old UIs around, so not everything is bad.
When a pocket supercomputer takes 10 seconds to display a list of comments in your website (and your previous version did it in 0.5s), it's time to stop and reflect how it went so wrong.
I have yet to come across a normal friend who doesn’t think HN is a super ugly site which essentially means if they had interest in the site, they prob wouldn’t use it.
All the HN comments here about Reddit are talking about how they feel and their bubble feels. Which I personally agree with. But I’m not representative of every day user.
There is no such thing as "every day user" though, every user is different and if anything a major source of those UX issues people have is "designers" who come up with imaginary "every day users" (usually to justify their own preferences) instead of performing actual usability tests on real users (and accepting when their ideas are bad or wrong) or just sticking with things that we already know that works and perhaps tweaking them (but again accept when they screw up and users say so and revert their changes instead of doubling down on them).
How about users who don’t know too much or don’t look too into the internet, web dev, or web design. And don’t read up on tech (not gadget) news specifically.
That keeps my point in tact and covers the vast majority of the population
If anything, ADHD-ed kids will find the older interface snappier. The newer interface is literally for dummies who don't even know how to use reddit-markup. Kids don't care about this stuff
I felt puzzled by Reddit's redesign until I started using the mobile app. Then as I was just scrolling and scrolling infinitely, just seeing what it would offer me next -- THAT is when I think I understood what the new Reddit interface was likely optimizing for.
To be honest, I actually don't mind that so much. The thing that annoys me about Reddit is the whole ads-that-look-like-posts thing.
While I agree with you here, there is also a point that it might attract new and younger users with its more 'modern' look.
Personally I like sites like HN or the old style wikipedia for its information density and out of the way design. But that might just be the age talking here. People that grow up now that mostly scroll by touching the screen with their fingers have other requirements and ideas about good UI.