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Reddit finally introduces a new layout

by Chez Jenny

posted in reddit , social media

After ten years of unchanged, archaic design, Reddit is implementing a thorough redesign of its desktop site. Literally everything is changing.

Reddit is a real exception. For many years I have avoided this site, thinking that it is a relic of the past, which is not worth taking an interest in. It was evident that subreddits, or thematic subpages, were vibrant with life, but their form was even repulsive. How is it possible that the website, which already looked archaic in 2012, has not been redesigned to this day?
The strength of Reddit, however, cannot be overlooked. For about two years I have been visiting there regularly, mainly subreports related to filming and photography. Reddit has the ability to bring the community together on even the most niche issues, so you can find information there that you can't find anywhere else on the web.

Of course, you can also waste time watching memos with sneezing panda.
Over the past year and a half, the design team has been working on refreshing Reddit. Yes, designers work in Reddit.

It was not an easy challenge. Reddit has 330 million active users, many of whom have been attached to the platform for years and see no need for visual change. Any attempt of redesign could be met with a boycott of the service. On the other hand, the pre-diluvian look is not able to attract new users, so designers had to face a big challenge.

Redesign Reddita has been announced for several months, which met with great interest among users. Now the new website is being made available to the public, although there is little chance that you will see it. In the first stage, only 1% of Reddit users will have a new look, and it will be possible to return to the old version. Within a few months, the new graphic design will be available to everyone.


The new Reddit will change everything.
First of all, the nightmarish upper bar will disappear on the side, which will be implemented as a "hamburger menu" on the left. Users will have a choice of three options of presenting the content, i.e. a solution similar to the one currently available in the Reddita application. You can view conversations as tabs, in a classic view, and in a compact view that contains the most content on a single screen. In card view, Reddit is very similar to Twitter or Facebook.
Perhaps the most important novelty is that threads will not open as a new page, but as an overlay (so-called lightbox). Reddit will also be a bit different when it comes to the posts you read. Individual subreddits will still be able to have their own colours and slightly different styles, but it will be based on the new template.
"It's difficult to redesign every big page, but for Reddit - which hasn't changed for a decade - it was something completely different. Here you can buy reddit upvotes for cheap.

The designers have been creating a new look for 1.5 years. The task was difficult, because the last big change in appearance took place in 2008. The design team began by analysing the 2000 largest subresidents for the visual changes that the moderators have made to the groups. An example of such a community is the extremely popular subreddit r/GameOfThrones, which despite all its uniqueness still looks like a website from a deep archive of the Internet.
On the basis of this information, a new tool has been developed which will enable group moderators to change their appearance faster and much simpler. Previously, hours of tedious styling and HTML editing were needed. Now the moderators will get into their hands creators using the WYSIWYG principle, i.e. showing the changes introduced on an ongoing basis.
Changing the look of Reddit desktop is very late, but necessary.

The redesign of Reddit is the subject of extensive case studies, in which each change is spread out over the first factors. Whatever you write about it, the fact remains: the redesign of the desktop page in 2018, conducted for the first time in a decade, sounds like a fools-day joke.

We live in a time when mobile traffic accounts for over 50% of page views on many websites, so the number one in visual terms is the mobile page or, alternatively, the application. Reddit has quite a successful application, which is why it is even more surprising that the desktop page will get redesign only after a decade. This seems to be an extreme sluggishness of the creators of the service.

Clearly, Reddit's strength has always been in the content, but if it is to be presented in a more user-friendly form in the end, I am in favour of it. The decision to redesign should have been made a few years ago.

 

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