Snapchats UX faux pas A lesson in the basics of UX

Image-sharing platform Snapchat rose to the top of the social media pyramid in no time. With its quirky AR-powered photo filters, it has become the go-to instant-messaging app for the younger demographic. Snapchat is famous and popular among people from all around the world. While it kept making tweaks to its design, in February this year, the company made design alterations that changed the UX of the entire app. The move was made to streamline stories and updates on the app and have a separate feed for branded and popular content. The change backfired majorly as Snapchat lost both money and users because of it.

Snapchats haste to monetize

Snapchat has been growing, usurping Facebook, Twitter and Instagram as the most popular social media platform. Its revenue in 2017 was over 8.2 million dollars. When it went public in 2017, Snapchat was valued at $28 billion dollars. Given it achieved such sporadic popularity in a short span of time, its competitors began introducing similar features to lure its user base. Instagrams introduction of stories has given Snapchat direct competition. Snapchat, thus, has been trying to tackle two brief issues. First, to keep users engaged. Second, to monetize the app by integrating advertisements. This is what prompted the recent design changes. Unfortunately, it backfired severely for Snapchat.

Snapchats revamp

Snapchat integrated its Stories and chat feature on one screen, calling it Friends page, and revamped the original Stories page to push popular and branded content. This irked users who took to social media to voice their dismissal of the new design. The below image provides a look at the design before as well as the new design.