Reddit App Redesign
An 11 years old social media platform that allows users to vote and comment on topics that other users on the site have presented.
WHY REDDIT?
It has a large, active user base
Official mobile application is still in its infancy, as version 1.0 was released just eleven months ago (now on 2.5.2 for iPhone)
​​It famously sports a very cluttered layout that is completely different than advertised
OUR TEAM
MY ROLE
METHODS
Bob Becker
Rebecca Hajduk
Suzy Kong
Jameson Zaballos
DATE
Mar. 2017 - Apr. 2017
UI/UX Designer
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Sketching
Cultural Probe
Survey
IDEATION
We use affinity diagram to post our thoughts regarding the features, design and drawbacks of Reddit App
CULTURAL PROBE
Since Reddit users are not well known to us, it is difficult to gain a true understanding of the group’s culture, behaviors, and attitudes, and more difficult to dig deeper to uncover preferences and concerns. So we use Cultural probes research method to provoke users to look and think about their environment in using the app. Responses from these probes build up a bridge between users and us.
We used Day Reconstruction Method in the form of Daily Google Survey:
Key User Group
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College students - Aged 18-25
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Young professionals
Main Scenario
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Browse Reddit
Methods
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Daily Google Survey
Durage
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One Week
INITIAL FINDING
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Participants used the app to browse with no purpose, and generally didn’t use it with any specific goal
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As such, breakdowns occurred once they tried to perform a task outside of simple browsings, such as customization or searching
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The differences between the Android and iPhone versions are astronomical, to the point where the Android app is significantly far behind in terms of design
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Participants generally gave up on a function if they couldn’t perform it, instead of investigating further, and just assumed that was “how the app was”
WORK MODLES
SEQUENCE MODEL
BREAKDOWNS
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Default post view option is obtrusive and it wastes space.
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The search function is inconsistent. Difference between the two apps (the Android version has fewer features overall).
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Inability to customize the same options on Android vs iOS.
Friends feature leaves out key features and cause participants to be unable to perform certain functions present on the desktop version.
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History when browsing isn’t consistent, and can cause browsing progress to be lost - This is especially damaging because some users reported 2+ hours of browsing a day.
Finding new subreddits and discovering new content was a task most users could not perform easily or intuitively
DESIGN IDEAS
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Customization - the theme menu requires three (non-intuitive) clicks to access, and isn’t made clear by default
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Major discrepancies between iPhone/Android versions, to the point of missing/split features
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Suggested Reddits and subscriptions are often unclear
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Friend function is confusing, but could be cleaned up very easily
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Search function for Reddit user is either inconsistent or non-existent
To view the project final processbook：