Comment by Dreamland-Nomad on 03/08/2021 at 04:30 UTC

3 upvotes, 1 direct replies (showing 1)

View submission: Addressing the new video player

Hey there Reddit. Not sure if you’re still reading/replying to these comments but I’d really like to offer my two cents to this experience as a senior UX designer (and redditor every day since 2015 on my other account)

First of all, I understand the need to place advertisements. That’s how you guys get paid to do the work you do, and that’s what keeps this platform up and running. We run ads on the app I work for. Video ads are a great opportunity to monetize, and I understand the **need** for a uniform player so you can iterate and ship quickly.

Thank you for fixing the comments issue. That was my biggest complaint. But there are a few more things I think are worth addressing in your next iterations. I may be speaking into the void, but I want to offer these user stories with the best of intentions.

• As a user, I expect comments that live in a bottom sheet to be expanded when I swipe up. Because it lives in a **bottom** sheet. I understand that some new users may expect the TikTok style of navigation, but it feels unnatural to me as a legacy user.
• As a user, I expect to navigate video posts the same way I navigate non-video posts. That means left and right should take me to the next posts.
• As a user who is interested in a wide variety of content across Reddit, I want to be able to navigate across all types of posts, not just video only. I can see where this request could disrupt monetization efforts, but I thought it’d be worth mentioning
• As a user with vision impairments, I find the video UI difficult to see, especially animated awards, and especially when the UI is displayed in front of bright videos.
• Finally, my biggest current gripe with this experience: As a user, I want to view discussions. Keeping comments in a bottom drawer/modal makes it hard to follow a lengthy discussion with lots of replies. Perhaps making comments or padding smaller could help, but I feel like it’s much more effort to follow threads than it used to be, and I rarely use the next comment widget. I wish I could give you a concrete reason why, but I just don’t have one.

If you read through this, thank you so much. I won’t pretend to know your current OKRs or goals, but it means a lot to me as a user to know we’re being heard.

Replies

Comment by outphase84 at 09/08/2021 at 21:01 UTC

1 upvotes, 0 direct replies

I hope Reddit’s product managers are kicking you back some compensation for writing their user stories for them