Snapchat had the brilliant idea to take the “new year, new me” trend and push it to the extreme. Its most recent update adds cool features, such as facial recognition, to its Bitmoji partner, but it completely ruins the functionality of the app.
What was previously the conversations tab now combines ongoing conversations with stories. For people who enjoy keeping their tabs organized, this update is a disaster to their system of deleting old conversations because they’ll pop right back up as soon as the other person posts on their Story.
There’s also the issue with accidentally clicking on someone’s story rather than on the message they sent, leaving users completely confused when the snap has nothing to do with the conversation.
Moreover, the more users watch a particular story, even if they don’t talk to the Snapchatter, the more likely like the profile will show at the top of the list on the tab. For people who have streaks, this is annoying and stressful because their streaks will be lost among the chaos.
Moving over to the Stories tab, the issue of randomization persists. Suddenly, there’s “public” and “popular” stories mixed in with stories the users actually follow, and it becomes difficult for users to watch what they want to watch without seeing a random person or event.
Unless users regularly post on their Stories, they will likely be confused as to where My Story is located. It’s neatly hidden in the top left corner, or in the Profile tab.
Finally, the My Friends list is gone, likely due to its pseudo replacement of having everything and everyone in the Conversations tab. It makes editing other Snapchatter’s names or removing them tiring and difficult.
This isn’t about hating change or being uncomfortable with change; this is about a beloved app moving from functional and fun, to complex and frustrating. It’s no longer user-friendly, and the new algorithm makes it just as bad as Instagram.
Boy, do I have a lot to say about this update. I would love to hear from someone who genuinely likes the update because I am seeing no positives. @Snapchat @snapchatsupport pic.twitter.com/Qn8IxTXJxq
— Daylin Delgado (@daylindelgado) February 10, 2018
