OVERVIEW
This project was completed for "Applied Product Design," a class taught by Brian Fling. We were provided various design prompts to choose from to solve.
DESIGN BRIEF
Reddit is seeing competition from other applications e.g. Apollo. What would be some ways to improve the Reddit Mobile App experience to be more competitive with more highly ranked alternatives?
CURRENT REDDIT APP
The existing app lacks customization/functionality and has a bothersome revenue model.
Common issues with Reddit (as a whole):
• Too much censorship
• Some communities are toxic
• Can't block or hide subreddits on r/Popular or r/All
Common issues with Reddit (as a whole):
• Too many ADs, notifications, and recommended posts
• Lack of customization/functionality (e.g. News tab, Chat, Inbox, Saved)
MARKET RESEARCH
Users opt for alternative Reddit apps due to a nicer user interface, more feature and customization options, and no ADS.
USER RESEARCH + PERSONAS
Understanding users' goals and pain points and developing representative user personas.
After conducting some market research, I turned to user interviews to gain a deeper understanding of the target users. In total, I interviewed five undergraduate students with varying experiences with Reddit. I chose to interview undergraduate students because I had easy access to them and Reddit is most popular among 18 to 29-year-olds.
IDEATION
Brainstorming ideas and returning to my research for inspiration.
Sketches of initial brainstorm
After defining my user personas, I tried to brainstorm some potential solutions as shown above. However, I couldn't come up with many ideas and I felt like I wasn't fully utilizing all of the research I conducted. So I decided to turn back to my research for inspiration and organized all of the information I collected into a Miro board.
WIREFRAMES
After mapping my research to my brainstormed solutions, I felt more confident in my design direction and created some wireframes in Whimsical.
USER TESTING
After creating my initial wireframes, I converted my wireframes into a clickable prototype and conducted four user tests with undergraduates with varying Reddit experience.
In summary, my users...
• Prefer the ability to scroll past ADs
• Want feed customization
• Want the ability to filter out subreddits, news sources, and spoilers
• Want the ability to organize their saved posts
• Want the ability to search comments
• Split opinion on Reddit's moderation system
SELECT ITERATIONS
Based on my user feedback, I adjusted my design accordingly.
The Final Product
STYLE GUIDE
CONCLUSION + LESSONS LEARNED
This was the first project I worked where I worked solo and redesigned a product through the full UX design process.
Although it was different from what I was used to, I believe it was a valuable experience that made me grow a lot as a designer. I gained more direct experience with various design methods and discovered many useful design tools, including Pitch and ProductHunt. Working as the sole designer also forced me to learn how to prioritize my time and work.
If I had more time...
• Design more high-fidelity screens and turn them into an interactive prototype
• Conduct some user testing with the prototype to gauge the user experience
• Devise a content moderation system that balances censorship and toxicity
What I Learned
Small changes can have a large impact
Something I quickly realized when I started this project is that although there are many Reddit app alternatives, the Reddit mobile app itself is still very good and doesn't need any major improvements. Therefore, I felt like I was only able to redesign small parts of the user experience sprinkled throughout the product.
However, I learned from my professor that this is common when you redesign complete products. There aren't going to be major changes but improving the minor issues makes a difference because small inconveniences add up and can negatively influence how users feel about a product.