Snapchat's Big Redesign Bashed In 83 Percent of User Reviews (techcrunch.com) 113
The new Snapchat redesign that jams Stories in between private messages is not receiving a whole lot of praise. "In the few countries including the U.K., Australia, and Canada where the redesign is widely available, 83 percent of App Store reviews (1,941) for the update are negative with one or two stars, according to data by mobile analytics firm Sensor Tower," reports TechCrunch. "Just 17 percent, or 391 of the reviews, give it three to five stars." From the report: The most referenced keywords in the negative reviews include "new update," "Stories," and "please fix." Meanwhile, Snapchat's Support Twitter account has been busy replying to people who hate the update and are asking to uninstall it, noting "It's not possible to revert to a previous version of Snapchat," and trying to explain where Stories are to confused users. Hopes were that the redesign could boost Snapchat's soggy revenue, which fell short of Wall Street earnings expectations in Q3 and led to a loss of $443 million. The redesign mixes Stories, where Snapchat shows ads but which have seen stagnation in sharing rates amidst competition from Instagram Stories, into the more popular messaging inbox, where Snapchat's ephemeral messaging is more differentiated and entrenched.
As with any other website redesign... (Score:4, Insightful)
They'll get over it.
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It's not like they have much of a choice anyway.
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They'll get over it.
Sounds like something a Progressive hipster who presumes to know better than you would say.
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It's one of the disadvantages of using non-standard/closed source services/apps: You're totally beholden to the whims of the owner.
In something like web browsers, mail clients, etc if one fucks up badly I can just use another
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They'll get over it.
Most of the forums I participate in on Yahoo have gotten over Yahoo's redesign but moving elsewhere.
Remember Slashdot beta? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Remember Slashdot beta? (Score:5, Insightful)
Unless there is something wrong with the current interface, updating for the sake of it is something that keeps marketing types employed but doesn't achieve much else that's positive.
Essentially, you're throwing away your users' familiarity with your interface and annoying them. They don't want to have to re-learn how to use your site... they want to engage the minimum possible number of brain cells required to participate.
However, marketing folks are GOOD at marketing, and one of the things they can sell people on is the need for marketing people, and they do that by first convincing you to listen to marketing people. When they form an unholy union with sales and convince people the changes can increase revenue... look out, change is coming.
Because it's not the users who matter, it's the customers.
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Unless there is something wrong with the current interface, updating for the sake of it is something that keeps marketing types employed but doesn't achieve much else that's positive.
Essentially, you're throwing away your users' familiarity with your interface and annoying them. They don't want to have to re-learn how to use your site... they want to engage the minimum possible number of brain cells required to participate.
The same thing happened with one of my banks recently, the website stayed the same for over a decade and suddenly underwent a total redesign that utterly destroys the workflow that I had going. Now not only does it take extra steps to do everything but their "tablet friendly or something" design requires absurd amount of scrolling as there is no longer a way to see all of my sub-accounts on one screen anymore.
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Capital One, I presume?
In process of closing my accounts with them because of that change. Holy crap what awful design.
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Re:Remember Slashdot beta? (Score:5, Interesting)
Ever notice how Amazon has basically had the same Dotcom 1.0 aesthetics forever? And how Jeff Bezos is the richest man on the planet? Maybe ridiculous interface refreshes with the latest hipster look and feel are not so good after all.
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Am I missing something? Amazon has plenty of the fancy dynamic loading and sliding stuff that everyone else does. It's just not badly done.
Re:Remember Slashdot beta? (Score:5, Insightful)
- No hamburger menus. They still dare to hide their menus behind descriptive words.
- Long lists actually have page numbers at the bottom, instead of infinitely scrolling.
- Everything's black text on white, with blue links, and prices in dark red. Lots of bold text everywhere. Virtually no pale thin fonts on pastel backgrounds.
- Not one, but TWO site maps at the bottom of the page!
- Minimal white space. By modern "UX" design, most pages are actually considered cluttered. Not quite "Yahoo 1996" cluttered, but still very information dense.
And you know what? It works. I can usually get from where I am to where I want to be with no more than a couple clicks, and I spend longer on each page because there's so much info to digest. That means I'm more likely to notice all the other "impulse buy" items on the sidebar, which is probably their goal.
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And it's Links-friendly! But it's still a far cry from the epitome of usability, berkshirehathaway.com. For example, many comments have all but the last one or two words displayed, and you have to click a "show more" Javascript link to see them. Slashdot has the same problem, but uses a page refresh instead of Javascript.
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Have you noticed how it's not really gotten any *better*, though?
Unlike many other web sites, Amazon seems to use a product description keyword based categorization system. If you're searching for a widget in a broad category (eg, "headphones"), it's nearly impossible to use Amazon to filter the search accurately by attributes because the filter categories are based on production descriptions, not actual specifications.
I always seem to end up with a bunch of junk, accessories, etc, only tangentially relate
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That's not a UI problem, it's a functionality problem. And how is the Amazon software supposed to catagorize products other than using the descriptions?
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A good Marketing Director (or marketing staff) would be opposed to this sort of change. Marketing isn't about selling something new and supporting all updates and changes; it's about creating a positive relationship between companies and customers. 95% of the time that means NOT changing things.
This sort of stuff isn't coming from the marketing department. It's coming from some C-level idiot who doesn't understand the first thing about customer service or brand reputation.
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Snapchat is the vendor. The advertisers are the ones who pay it. They are the customers. The people who use snapchat to exchange photos and message are called the product. The company will fall at the feet of the customers, and do what they demand.
They will make it annoying and difficult to use. If you are not paying for it, you are NOT the customer.
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So what do you call it when 50% of your 'product' wanders off? It's a moot point really. Revenue is not customer based here, it's user based.
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You are the product
They will improve the "product". When you pay nothing, you use a platform because most of your moronic friends are too stingy to pay for a real service, you don't get to complain.
They deserve all the indignities being heaped on them.
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Unless there is something wrong with the current interface, updating for the sake of it ...
Despite what users think very few updates are "for the sake of it". Typically updates to interfaces are to capture new users with the knowledge that the old users while complaining bitterly are locked in to your platform. When your growth stagnates a new interface and give it yet another bump.
You see marketing people are just like any other people, they are a business decision that need to provide more value to the company than their paycheck or they get made redundant. Without marketing people doing things
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'locked into' works great for sites with lots of historical data. FB, as an example, keeps reminding you how much stuff you have on there with the '5 years ago' suggested post nonsense.
Snapchat is transitory by design. There's no lock-in besides your friends list which is pretty trivial.
For a business catering to a generation that changes direction with the wind on a product with essentially zero history or lock-in they're playing a dangerous game.
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There's some balance...there ARE improvements to the UI that most websites would benefit from.
It's when they decide to redesign and move EVERYTHING around to a "better" place that they annoy their long term user base...and many people just give up and go re-learn on another site. Sites like FB are lucky enough to have a large base of user data that's not easy to take elsewhere which leaves people generally at their mercy.
Snapchat OTOH is transient by design so other than a friends list, there's literally n
Re:Remember Slashdot beta? (Score:5, Insightful)
It is always the same story. Someone thinks the site needs to be refreshed, but users do not like change for the sake of it, especially about user interfaces.
I don't care if the UI changes, but it needs to change to something usable.
That Slashdot beta was so bad that I stopped visiting Slashdot altogether.
It took me six months to realize they had reverted the beta, and that was because I accidentally followed a link.
Re: Remember Slashdot beta? (Score:1)
F beta!
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True, but sometimes it gets broken for no reason other than "new stuff".
For example: firefox has redesigned its new home page, and whilst it used to have a set of often-accessed sites, like a super-bookmark page, it now has "trending on pocket" and a history. Neither of which are particularly useful when what you want is the old set of bookmarks.
Fortunately you can turn the pocket stuff off, but then you're left with a big gap of blank space instead.
(this is on mobile, on desktop it simply puts the remainin
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I wish Windows and OSX and Gnome would learn. I'm sticking with Mint specifically because they don't f with the UI
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Yep, I totally called this about a month or two ago. Too lazy to look it up though. And of course, it's not like I exactly needed to be Nostradamus to predict this either.
Brought to you by the same type of idiot who gave us "New Coke."
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This is what I find so inexplicable about Google. They keep creating a product with a decent interface, then ruining the interface. The only product they then go on to actually fix again is mail. The G+ interface for example has become steadily worse in every way but one, they finally fixed Plus Tagging such that it actually works correctly almost all of the time. People show up with the names they have set now, for example, not just the name they signed up with. I've been tagging this one guy who signed up
Web 3.0 is a pile of shit (Score:4, Insightful)
This whole "responsive" design (slow, bloated, ajax-on-meth pile of shit) shift and "mobile" revolution has been a wholesale disaster.
Brutal reality: Websites were better when IE6 was still around.
When we didn't have standards. When "Designers" didn't have the ability to treat the browser as a turning machine and hijack everything about it. When sites pretended to give a shit about bandwidth.
Web 3.0 is a pile of shit.
http://idlewords.com/talks/website_obesity.htm [idlewords.com]
http://motherfuckingwebsite.com/ [motherfuckingwebsite.com]
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I used to think like you.
Then I discovered browser plugins, ad blockers, privacy protectors and other things that made loading webpages fast again.
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To be honest, it's quite impressive that it works at all.
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Really? do you miss flash? java applets?
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Nobody misses Java applets or Flash blobs. IMHO, the hope was that when Flash expired those sites would be forced to migrate to less obnoxious interfaces. Unfortunately the Black Mirror like outcome was that all those dumb Flash and Java applets waited until HTML5 matured enough that they could basically just produce the same shit as HTML5.
I almost wonder if there were tools made that allowed for cross-compiling (translating?) a Flash project as HTML5 directly.
Retarded millennial hipsters (Score:3, Funny)
Retarded millennial hipsters producing shitty designs because they're retarded millennial hipsters...
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Yeah but that's also their target audience.
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Considering that your generation created things like MUMPS [wikipedia.org] I really dont think you have the right to complain about millennials.
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What's wrong with MUMPS except that its old and didn't support all the bells and whistles the processing power of yesteryear couldn't support anyway?
If you're writing mission critical software, an ACID transactional system built into the language seems like a good idea that makes things easier to do good work with. But I guess if its not flashy and super complex and bloated then it must be crap, right?
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Not super complex? Tell me, how would you call using the same interface to access both memory variables and disk variables? Or maybe we should talk about the lack of schema?
Being unable to easily reason about how your program will act is exactly what makes MUMPS (or Javascript) complex. I do think that MUMPS decision to mix memory access and disk access in the same interface is one of the worst decisions ever made in programming language design.
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Are we allowed to use the word stupid around those who have loved ones who are stupid?
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Retarded millennial hipsters producing shitty designs because they're retarded millennial hipsters...
I love people who hate on millennials because they're millenials.
It's like you're saying that you have so few positive attributes that the only thing you think shows you're better than anyone else is something utterly arbitrary, i.e. yur age.
" a loss of $443 million." (Score:2)
Hopes were that the redesign could boost Snapchat's soggy revenue, which fell short of Wall Street earnings expectations in Q3 and led to a loss of $443 million.
Excuse me but I think these guys possibly should be investigated either for embezzlement or they're building a secret moon base with lasers, sharks, blackjack and hookers.
How on earth do you fit that much money into such a small space? Do you have a TARDIS in your pocket?
A design upgrade isn't a good enough reason (Score:2, Insightful)
You need to add a feature or something that makes the design update the AFTERTHOUGHT, as they're wowed by how simple and powerful the new version is. If you're drawing attention to something trivial and it also sucks, congratulations yes that's going to bite you. Fortunately nobody will miss this app in 2 years when it's replaced by something more hip and wowfactor.
facebook did the same garbage years ago (Score:1)
Facebook did this garbage when they pretty much made it impossible for me to find shit I cared about, but needed to make damn sure I saw whatever retarded bullshit meme I never cared about.
You want to kill your user base? Take away all the shit that the users liked about your service.
Idiots.
What's a 'snapchat'? (Score:2)
Any UI change you implement needs to pass the test (Score:5, Insightful)
Mostly the test of the user of "enhanced experience" against the discomfort of having to move his ass. Any change is first met with resistance. It could be the best, most intuitive UI in the history of UIs and the user will first meet it with hostility. It's different, it ain't what he is used to and most of all using it without having to use half a brain cell, i.e. what he was used to if it was a tool he used every day for hours, is no longer an option. He has to learn again. People do not like that.
So whenever you do something like this, you HAVE TO give the user something he really, really, REALLY wants to compensate and overcome that reluctance. It needn't even be anything great. Not even anything useful. Any kind of convenience goodie may well do the trick.
Without, your UI is doomed.
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He has to learn again. People do not like that.
Companies need to stop believing that customers don't know what they want until they see it.
History is full of UI redesigns that were welcomed with open arms, even if there were no radical new features. Most of that happened in the 90's, when GUIs were still new[ish] and evolving, and just moving things around was accepted as obvious improvement. These days the computer industry is a mature market, and we have 30 years of well-established standards. Even ordinary people are well aware that rapid changes
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Nobody likes redesigns (Score:2)
Chekov died because of this crap (Score:3)
Changing user interfaces willy-nilly kills well-known actors and pisses off millions of teenagers. Don't do it.
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I'd just like to point out that user interface design changes for no good reason other than change's sake resulted in the death of Chekov's actor, Anton Yelchin.
What's really sad is that FCA, or Chrysler anyway, had a superior interface back in the 1960s. My 1960 Dodge Dart (Phoenix 2dr) had a push button automatic, which also appeared in several other vehicles made by Chrysler corp. It left absolutely no doubt about your gear selection. The parking brake was on a pedal, and totally distinct from the transmission like it should be. Some other vehicles have adopted push button automatic in recent years, but not vehicles from FCA. It's actually Lincoln that's been us
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The brake must be applied to change gears, INCLUDING to change into park when stopped. The gear change indication is not moved by bumping the lever (this would make a
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I agree about the benefit of confident gear selection/awareness. However, I bet it failed UX at the time, because people were far too accustomed to direct mechanical interaction for driving, and the push button left them feeling disconnected, or un-trusting of the automation. This is a life-n-death device, and trust is a factor.
Yes, because people have no idea how any of this stuff works.
On the other hand, you could buy a car with a column mounted, big mechanical lever that still clearly showed you the exact gear selection.
Here's the thing, though; that big mechanical lever clearly shows you the exact gear shift position. It does not necessarily show you the gear selection, since something can go wrong with the linkage between the shifter and the transmission. Therefore, push button automatic was not accepted by the public only because they are dumb. Only a real manual transmission actually puts you in contact with the gears. Everything else is abstraction atop abst
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I bet it failed UX at the time, because people were ... un-trusting of the automation.
Given the history of car makers with reliability of automation, that would be and still is enough for me.
Killing it? (Score:1)
My god, who did this redesign? Kennedy? Johnson? (Score:1)
seriously I don't care. Just wanted to get in a dig on the still declining scores for the Last Jedi and it's projected 800 million dollar shortfall. Just because they didn't listen to fans / users and tried to reboot and cram something down everyone's throat.
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seriously I don't care. Just wanted to get in a dig on the still declining scores for the Last Jedi and it's projected 800 million dollar shortfall. Just because they didn't listen to fans / users and tried to reboot and cram something down everyone's throat.
It's so far got box office receipts of 1.2 billion of a budget of 200 million, and it's still growing. I somehow doubt the vampire lawyers in charge of Disney are upset by this.
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That's the production budget my friend. Reports in industry trade rags are that the total budget including marketing was 800 million dollars. So that's a net of 400 million. About a 33% return. I agree, 400 million profits seems great to you and me! But, it is nowhere near as profitable as it could have been.
And I don't know... even if I was a vampire lawyer, I'd be devastated when my projections were for taking in about 2.0 billion dollars and the film only brought in 1.2 billion dollars and merchand
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So that's a net of 400 million. About a 33% return. I agree, 400 million profits seems great to you and me! But, it is nowhere near as profitable as it could have been.
Except no one but the most deluded arrogrent people forecast their film as one of the highest grossing films ever.
A 33% return is not bad, and you're ignoring that it's still in cinemas so it's not come close to maximising the revenue for post release sales and merchandising.
And I don't know... even if I was a vampire lawyer, I'd be devastat
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Disney made those numbers by locking theaters into a deal for an extra 20% of the box office compared to the normal deals. WIthout that, it would have been even lower.
Industry insiders leaked to the press. Go look on youtube, there are plenty of videos with cites to all this info.
Angry neck beards? Have you even glanced at the angry youtube videos?
Let's see... from the videos... Disney deeply offended the following groups...
Young women in their 20s. Older women in the 30s.
Young black, asian, hispanic,
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Industry insiders leaked to the press. Go look on youtube, there are plenty of videos with cites to all this info
Youtube is not a great source of news, os I'm not going to wade through hours of nutcases ranting in order to possibly find a kernel of truth that i then have to verify by other means anyway.
Angry neck beards? Have you even glanced at the angry youtube videos?
No. First, I get my daily dose of stupid right here; I don't need another source. Second youtubers are about 0.01% of the actual star wars
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Now you are just repeating points I already addressed.
Good point. Yea, there are also offended chinese fans on youtube and in china. As I said, the offended fan base cut across multiple races, both genders, and all age groups. It also included people with poorly trimmed beards who you keep attacking.
Missing the mark by 800 million is not "within a hair".
The film was overall bad.
The point on fisher is they gave the character a "meh" death (seriously rolling Holdo into Leia and giving Holdo's death to Leia
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As I said, the offended fan base cut across multiple races, both genders, and all age groups.
You repeat yourself. The fans dedicated enough to rant on youtube are an irrelevancy in terms of audience size.
It also included people with poorly trimmed beards who you keep attacking.
True neckbeardery is a way of life, not a(lack of) grooming technique.
Missing the mark by 800 million is not "within a hair".
I said it'll end within a hair of being their second highest grossing film ever. Not bad at all!
The point o
Beta Sucks! (Score:2)
It sucks hard.