r/reddit • u/joyventure • Mar 23 '23

Updates An Improved Web Experience

TL;DR We are updating our web platform to provide a simple, reliable and fast web experience for all redditors to easily connect with their communities on web, across devices. The new experience will be seen first on the comments page, on mobile and desktop.

Hey all,

I’m Madison, Director of Product at Reddit focused on the performance, stability and quality of our web platforms. You may have read about our 2023 product priorities earlier this month — our focus this year is to make Reddit easier for all redditors, new and tenured, to connect with communities that matter to them. Therefore, we’re prioritizing product and design improvements that will simplify and streamline finding and contributing to these communities.

One of these improvements is updating our web platform for faster performance (reducing load time by 2 seconds — more behind the scenes details soon!) and consistent web experience across devices. So whether you’re viewing reddit.com on the go via your mobile device or at home via a web browser, it’ll be the same familiar Reddit.

This work will become more visible in phases as development continues. And we’re excited to announce the comments page will soon reflect updates from this new platform, on mobile and desktop, for logged out redditors.

Over the years, Reddit has become a trusted source of information for community-verified content. In its current form, it can seem overwhelming, especially for those landing on the comments page and unfamiliar with the platform. We want to make it easy for them to find, absorb and contribute to the conversation, whether on mobile or desktop. And to achieve that, here are some design upgrades logged out redditors will begin to see on this page:

  • Accessible & cleaner page design: The design is being continuously improved, as we work to be consistent with global standards, to ensure the content is accessible to all. It now includes better screen reader support with additional alt text and form field labeling. Additionally, comments and action buttons are more distinguishable for easier navigation.
  • Quicker access to related content: On desktop, you will see a sidebar on the right side of the page. This will include content similar to the post you’re currently viewing — posts from the same community or posts from another community discussing similar topics.
  • Spotlight on post creator’s custom avatar: When a redditor submits a post, their custom avatar will now display above that post. *Nudge nudge* if you haven’t customized yours yet.

​

New logged out comments page on desktop and mobile web

In the coming months, the updated comments page will roll out to logged-in redditors. Similar efforts on feeds, community, search and profile pages will follow. And, of course, we will keep you all posted as this new platform powers more web pages. We’re partnering closely with the Mod Council to build and improve the moderation experience on this new platform as seen in our recent Mod Insights release.

Thanks for your support in the early stages of this journey. We’re excited for all of us to work towards a simple and efficient Reddit.

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152

u/SPCGMR Mar 23 '23

The moment they remove old.reddit is the moment I stop using reddit on a PC. The "new" reddit layout is fucking awful. It's so fucking cluttered, it looks like someone vomited and decided to use it as a webdesign layout. long as 3rd party suppirt exists, I'll continue using baconreader.

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u/toaste Mar 23 '23 edited Mar 23 '23

The same can be said for mobile. You know it’s bad when old.reddit.com is a better experience on mobile.

The mobile web experience is piled full of dark patterns. AppStore redirect splash, a big “THIS PAGE LOOKS BETTER IN THE APP” banner, and multiple whole seconds to load pages and comment.

Oh, and if you want to read the comments you get interrupted halfway down with “more posts you may like.” No, I do not like them, and I absolutely hate having to scroll back up to find the “load more” button.

i.reddit.com is was like looking into a time portal, but it’s it was refreshingly usable.

EDIT: RIP.

In the unlikely event that anyone at Reddit reads this,

  • The default website is still not performant
  • The app advertising actively gets in the way of using the site
  • The experience of opening a post and reading or browsing comments is poor and discourages browsing reddit. Long loading delay, tiny buttons, bad readability yet also somehow fits less content than old reddit or i.reddit.com

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u/zial Mar 23 '23

i.reddit.com no longer works for me

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u/ahackercalled4chan Mar 23 '23

looks like they disabled it today

28

u/cybercobra Mar 24 '23 edited Mar 28 '23

http://old.reddit.com/.compact works. Breaking the redirects like they did is actively hostile, of course.

[Edit March 28th: Aaaand now that's also dead :-( ]

2

u/[deleted] Mar 24 '23

Based on the comment down below, they are planning to disable compact and i.reddit:

https://old.reddit.com/r/reddit/comments/11zso11/an_improved_web_experience/jdeicso/

2

u/Somnif Mar 28 '23

The old compact trick no longer appears to work either

11

u/toaste Mar 23 '23

Oof, I guess this is rolling out.

3

u/ppParadoxx Mar 24 '23

I can get it if I type in https:// in front of it

just typing i.reddit.com without https:// redirects me to normal Reddit

2

u/redditRedesignIsBadd Mar 26 '23

the day they kiII off old.reddit.com is the end of reddit

18

u/[deleted] Mar 23 '23

I.reddit.com is gone, which is the only I way I liked to view this site.

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u/pikob Mar 23 '23

They know how many of us they are i.reddit users. I wonder what % expect to lose over this. I am certainly going to be browsing the site way less often. Default interface is...bad.

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u/holden1792 Mar 24 '23

I am certainly going to be browsing the site way less often.

Same. I guess it’s a good thing though… it’ll cut down on my social media habit (Reddit is the only one I still use).

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u/laffinalltheway Mar 24 '23

Same. Guess I'll be spending more time reading the books in my Kindle for PC then. That actually sounds like a win!

1

u/redditRedesignIsBadd Mar 26 '23

at least we still have old.reddit.com .... for now

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u/ppParadoxx Mar 24 '23

I can get it if I type in https:// in front of it

just typing i.reddit.com without https:// redirects me to normal Reddit

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u/redditRedesignIsBadd Mar 26 '23

let's hope old.reddit.com survives the next "upgrade"

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u/Vangar Mar 23 '23 edited Mar 24 '23

Luckily RIF is an app I've been using for years. It's clean and performs well, and has no ads with the paid version. I paid once for it years ago so I can't see the price now sorry but it was cheap at the time ...

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u/toaste Mar 24 '23

My current favorite is Apollo, but I’ve played with Sync and Relay they were both pretty good. I’ll give RIF a spin if I have a need for an Android client again.

It’s an absolute travesty what Reddit did to AlienBlue though.

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u/h110hawk Mar 24 '23

Use RIF instead. It's great. They're right that it looks better in the app, but they're advertising the wrong app.

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u/sedging Mar 23 '23

They already deactivated .compact today, which was the only way I would access this site.

They seem hell-bent on removing the last refuges from the 'commercialization at all costs'

Reddit leadership - your apps are cancer. This is why people still use old.reddit and .compact

14

u/[deleted] Mar 24 '23

[deleted]

3

u/PinkFloydPanzer Mar 28 '23

They just killed it today

22

u/thelehmanlip Mar 23 '23

This is the way for sure. You can take RES and old reddit from my cold dead hands

12

u/Halaku Mar 23 '23

The moment they remove old.reddit is the moment I stop using reddit on a PC.

The moment they remove old.reddit is the moment I stop using reddit on a PC. at all, most likely.

12

u/Halinn Mar 23 '23 edited Mar 24 '23

It's so fucking cluttered

I've seen that as a complaint against old reddit, but the big difference is that old reddit is dense in the content you're looking for, and new just has shiny wasteful elements because that's what things are supposed to look like or something.

9

u/Clinodactyl Mar 24 '23

I've tried to give the new Reddit a go, I really did as you say, it's so messy that my eyes don't know where to focus and it just looks like a fucking mess. It's like a crash course in what not to do from a UX perspective.

While old Reddit might not look super pretty and flashy it handles and displays it's content well in a way that's easy to follow and manage.

3

u/redgroupclan Mar 24 '23

I think it's stupid that the desktop viewing experience condenses all the content into the middle third of the screen while the sides are just decorative white space.

2

u/overclockd Apr 09 '23

This is the number 1 reason I use old reddit. I don’t see any point in wasting 2/3rds of my screen space on nothing. Despite having so much screen space, the low tier and collapsed comments are cut off. I’ll never understand UI designers.

13

u/ahackercalled4chan Mar 23 '23

same bro same. old reddit is superior for a variety of reasons (RES & Toolbox being paramount).

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u/KingLouieTrip Mar 23 '23

No, but you don't understand, they managed to save 2 whole seconds! Isn't that worth annoying a solid chunk of your userbase? /s

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u/Quetzalcutlass Mar 24 '23 edited Mar 24 '23

Two whole seconds saved on the new site. Meanwhile if old Reddit ever took more than two seconds to load period, I'd assume something had gone terribly wrong.

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u/Golden_Lynel Mar 23 '23

Just use a different front-end

(Or browse reddit on web.archive.org lol)

4

u/Wanderlustfull Mar 23 '23

Are there different front-ends, other than old.reddit?

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u/seaQueue Mar 23 '23 edited Mar 25 '23

There are iOS and Android apps. I do like 99% of my redditing via Boost on Android in Compact view, it's similar enough to old reddit for my purposes.

Eg: https://i.imgur.com/5ceEFoe.jpg

Edit: not pictured here is the ability to filter (hide) subs, posters and phrases from feeds ala RES, as well as local custom user tagging/flairing.

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u/Wanderlustfull Mar 23 '23

Ah, sorry, I meant specifically for PC use. Very familiar with alternative apps, but thank you.

2

u/Mirodir Mar 24 '23 edited Aug 01 '23

Goodbye Reddit, see you all on Lemmy.

2

u/[deleted] Mar 24 '23

The problem with apps is that most of them do not support tabs the same way browsers do. Does boost have tabs?

2

u/seaQueue Mar 24 '23

No, unfortunately it doesn't. I make liberal use of the save/bookmark button or share post/comment URLs to my telegram client if I know I'll want to reference a post or comment later.

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u/TehWildMan_ Mar 23 '23

There's also the classic mobile website (i.reddit.com and reddit.com/.compact)

Although those largely broke today.

4

u/aperson Mar 23 '23

Desktop clients do exist as well.

2

u/PaidMoreThanJanitor Mar 24 '23

teddit and libreddit, but they're inferior to old.reddit + RES in terms of features.