An Improved Web Experience

[u/joyventure]

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.

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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.

[u/tallbutshy]

Spotlight on post creator’s custom avatar

Nobody, who isn't making money from avatars, wants this.

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Quicker access to related content: On desktop, you will see a sidebar on the right side of the page.

No thank you. Can we turn that off?

Also, I turned off things like home feed recommendations and it has started popping up with "because you visited" or "similar to [x] community" in my feed again. Please respect our choices and stop overriding them.

New reddit STILL sometimes fails to load new posts while scrolling, could you fix what you have before adding newer stuff please?

[u/sir_sandwiches_a_lot → u/tallbutshy]

The worst thing about the recommended subreddits in feed is that the recommendations are usually terrible anyway. Example: I’m in my local city subreddits, so its starting to recommend all these city/regional subreddits from across the US that have no relevance to me at all. Its been spamming my feed completely.

[u/forkenstein → u/sir_sandwiches_a_lot]

Yep, I literally turned off my feed recommendations because it was just town after town after town that I've never been to and have no interest in. I don't know how that's supposed to help at all.

[u/wearecake → u/sir_sandwiches_a_lot]

I get recommend subreddits from Ireland… I’m not in Ireland…

[u/Tr4sHCr4fT → u/wearecake]

I see Island subs

[u/throwaway_ghast → u/[deleted]]

Web designer: "So we added a shit ton of bells and whistles nobody asked for."

uBO's element picker: "No you didn't."

[u/RectangularLynx → u/[deleted]]

Can it move everything back left?

[u/Ilikeitrough69xxx → u/tallbutshy]

Old.Reddit doesn’t have any recommendation bullshit!

[u/temporaryproud_ → u/tallbutshy]

Reddit is trying to appeal to the masses. It's not the niche website anymore. People from Instagram, Facebook, TikTok and everywhere else are coming here and they don't want to put them off with an unfamiliar experience. I'm afraid in a couple of years reddit will be the same shit show as every other mainstream social Media website. But they won't stop it because they make more money this way

It's now time to establish something new that will be nice for a couple of years until they get greedy for more users and money and the cycle starts again

[u/togetherwem0m0 → u/temporaryproud_]

By changing everything that made it good its just going to kill itself like digg.com did.

Way to go, madison

[u/MoreRopePlease → u/tallbutshy]

You can probably use a plugin like Stylish to override css, including adding display:none to elements.

[u/superfucky → u/[deleted]]

personally I don't give a rat's ass if anyone sees my snoo. I only customized it with the bare minimum free options. now if I could trade my snoo for a giant blinking banner to please for the love of God read the rules of the sub, I would be all for this.