When I first saw Snapchat’s new look after the update, I almost immediately knew that it probably wasn’t going to be good.
I am generally a very open-minded person when it comes to new things, so despite my initial thoughts, I decided to give the new update a chance. Unfortunately, I’ve struggled to find anything new that makes the app significantly more enjoyable. Many of the new features that have been implemented are quite frankly useless and don’t make the app any easier to use. One of the greatest strengths of Snapchat was how easy and user-friendly it was. While it’s still easy enough to navigate after adjusting to its new paint job, it is not as simplistic as it once was.
One of the biggest issues with the new update is that it makes quickly viewing your friends’ stories more difficult. On top of that, the clear separation between your friends’ stories and streaks is made less evident.
This is also a major problem because it causes some people to lose ongoing streaks because stories are put first on the friends page, causing streaks to get pushed down the list. This makes keeping streaks going more tedious because it’s no longer as easy to keep up with who you have streaks with. Personally, I would like streaks rather than stories to be at the top of the page, or to just go back to the old version where streaks and stories were kept on two separate pages entirely.
There has been major pushback against the update, including a petition to convince Snap Inc. to revert the app back to its more accessible version. The petition was started on Change.org by Nic Rumsey, and has since garnered over 1 million votes and is still getting more.
This alone should be enough to tell Snap Inc. that a large portion of Snapchat users aren’t happy about the new update. Some have even taken the issue into their own hands and used methods to change their app back to the older version.
There have been some rumors that an update will be released that will revert the app back to its original style, and hopefully those rumors are true. However, if Snap Inc. does decide to stick with the new format, I, along with many other users, will be very displeased. Other apps such as Instagram have features that are quite similar to Snapchat’s, but the reason I have always preferred Snapchat’s version of the features over Instagram’s is because Snapchat’s is better designed and easier to use.
I’m not sure if I’ll use Snapchat to the same extent if it is not changed back to the old version. I appreciate it when companies try to be innovative with their products and I fully encourage them to test out new ideas, but sometimes it’s best to listen to feedback people provide and go back to the drawing board.