Snap’s recent redesign was an absolute failure. Instead of putting Stories on the left, the app has become a hub for celebrity content and sponsored content. The redesign is also making it easier to avoid ads. In addition, the company has just released its best quarter since going public, beating both revenue and earnings estimates. As a result, Snap’s stock price has increased over 30 percent in the past week alone. Thankfully, there are some ways to salvage the disastrous redesign.
The most obvious reason why the redesign failed is that Snap failed to recognize the current state of its users. The company did not acknowledge the way people used the product, which led to user revolt. While Snapchat tried to change things quickly and dramatically, they failed to balance the needs of their users with their business goals. As a result, they accumulated vision debt and suffered negative user reactions. As a result, Snapchat is rolling back a number of changes.
The redesign isn’t just a failure to address user complaints. In fact, it has also failed to address the core problem that users had with the previous version of the app. In the United Kingdom, Australia and Canada, 83 percent of user reviews were negative. Regardless of the reasons for Snapchat’s redesign failure, its overall performance has declined. The company hopes that the redesign will reverse its downward trend, but it has failed to do so. It posted a loss of $443 million in Q3 2017.