Snapchat users slam new UI, over a million sign petition seeking rollback

Back in November, Snapchat overhauled its app to separate the social from the media. The redesign was aimed to create two distinct categories, one side that is personalised with chats and stories from friends and families and one side for stories from publishers, creators and community. Snapchat CEO Evan Spiegel believed the older version blurred the lines between the two and contributed to the rise of fake news. However, the new design has not been well appreciated by Snapchat users.

Following the major redesign, the company has received a lot of backlash as thousands of users have found the new layout hard to use. The public outcry has grown ever since and over a million people have signed a petition on change.org to remove the new Snapchat update and revert to the older design. The petition was created by Nic Rumsey who wrote that, There is a general level of annoyance among users and many have decided to use a VPN app, or are using other risky apps or steps, to go back to the old Snapchat as thats how annoying this new update has become.

Before the update, the left side of Snapchat had been for chats while the right side had been for Stories from both friends and publishers. Now, users have to swipe left to interact with friends and family and swipe right to see content from publishers and brands. The redesign has been criticised for being difficult to use, which is interesting considering one of the reasons behind the update was that Snapchat felt the older design was difficult to use by new users.

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Despite the backlash, Spiegel continued to defend the redesign and said that people need to get used to it. The tech is an important piece but I think the harder part you cant get around is the time it takes to learn, Spiegel said at the Goldman Sachs Internet & Technology Conference. You do need folks to use the product, to communicate with their friends to learn how to better provide that feed. The tech to some degree is a solved problem, the time to to learn is a hard problem to solve. Even the complaints were seeing reinforce the philosophy. Even the frustrations were seeing really validate those changes. Itll take time for people to adjust, but for me using it for a couple months I feel way more attached to the service.

Earlier this month, Snapchat reported strong Q4 earnings after a period of slump since going public. The company added 8.9 million daily active users for a total of 187 million users. A positive growth for the company may just boost its confidence over the redesign and we may not see the company roll things back despite the outrage.