A Review of the New Mobile UI (The Good AND The Bad)
Alright. I sent a feedback ticket within the app, but I do want to consolidate all of my observations within one post, including a ton of new things.
For context, I moderate a decently active Discord server, and so along with the normal Discord experience, I also have moderation duties that I carry out, and I will also discuss the impact of these changes to the functioning of the server I moderate. I've been a Discord user for 5 years and a moderator in various locations for 3 years, so I have had a good amount of experience on the app- hoping that'll at least make my review of it worthwhile. (I'm also sure this is going to get buried onto the next page of reviews within five minutes, but I want to get it out there anyway!)
I'll start with the few small things I do like, just to get them out of the way.
The Good Changes
Despite the complaint and backlash about many of these changes, there genuinely is a few things that I do like about this update-- I don't think it necessarily outweighs the things I don't like in terms of usability (it doesn't outweigh it at all, honestly), but I thought I'd point them out regardless.
1. The implementation of some desktop settings into mobile
I noticed right off the bat when I went to look through my new settings that there were additional settings that I would usually only be able to access via desktop Discord, and I appreciate that I'm now able to do these things on mobile without having to boot up my computer, such as developer mode.
2. The organization of the settings page
I'm not sure how new this is, but the fact that the settings page is grouped into categories makes it a lot less overwhelming to look at. (I can't say the same for most of the new UI, but we'll get there.)
Being able to search through the settings is also a huge relief, because I know it is definitely overwhelming for some users, so you don't have to do nearly as much searching to find the setting you want.
3. Favorite Channels and DMs
As a longtime Discord user, I have about a hundred people I've talked to in DMs, some more frequently than others. I'm excited about the fact that I can pin some to the top rather than having to scroll- this genuinely does make the experience easier.
4. Channel details page
I'm a little bit iffy on this one, actually. I don't like it very much for various reasons. But there are some qualities to it that I found nice- specifically the fact that it does group some things together in a nice little window instead of having them cluttered in the corner of the screen. These things for me would be threads, notification settings, and channel settings, and maybe even pins. I personally like these being grouped together, because they all have to do with the channel itself (though I'm back and forth on whether pins should be out for ease of access). Also, the channel title is a nice spot to put this, because it really does consolidate things in a nice way. I'll cover what I don't really like about this part later on.
5. Easier group DM creation
I find it nice that you can add people all at once instead of having to invite them one by one-- it really saves time.
6. You tab
I'm a bit iffy on this one as well, but again-- there's some qualities I like. You can view and edit your profile without the popup appearing in the middle of a conversation, and everything is easier to find this way, I think. (Besides settings, but we'll get there, too)
7. New VC interface
I actually do like the look of this one, but I haven't tested it out myself. I've joined only a few calls on mobile on account of how clunky, confusing, and inconvenient the old UI was, but this looks like it'll make things a lot easier to navigate, which is definitely a relief. Now I'll be more comfortable joining on the go!
8. Various visual changes
Midnight theme is here! Hooray! Plus a variety of other themes, which is fun. I have seen people express, however, that the previous theme was easier on the eyes of people who have a hard time seeing-- making the old theme available would be a major accessibility feature.
I also appreciate the smaller ‘new messages’ popup within server channel lists, that just says ‘new’ instead of covering the whole top of the list. It's also quite a bit more accurate than the old one, and if I scroll past the unread channel, it reflects that it's moved instead of pointing in the same direction.
Alright. Now, for what you've probably been waiting for:
The Bad Changes
Despite there being a few good things that have come out of this update, they absolutely have not made up for the new UI-- confusing, inconvinient, and inaccessible in a lot of ways. Here's my comments on it.
1. The sizing of things
My first gripe is the resizing of a lot of things- from what I gather, things have been made smaller to account for implementing new things. I've seen users saying that it's difficult for them to read the text on the app due to how small it is, and I can't imagine how hard that would be for people who have a hard time seeing in general. The text along the bottom of the screen is even tinier, and I have no idea how anyone who doesn't have good vision would be able to read that.
I myself generally have steady hands, but I've been having trouble finding and clicking many of the buttons. I couldn't locate the settings at all on my first and second look around, because the button is so tiny, and even then, it took me a few tries to actually click it. I don't understand why it's so small and difficult to find and click, but it really is. I also can't imagine how people with things like hand tremors will be able to access their settings without a huge hassle.
2. Members list (and swipe to reply)
I'll say it up front: swipe to reply is inconvenient and doesn't make anything easier. It was rejected the first time around because people didn't like it, and people still don't like it. It takes away a feature essential to a discord server (and g/dms, for that matter, which is the members list) and adds something that's easily done by just tapping and holding a message. Almost every single user has the muscle memory to swipe to check the members list, and it's genuinely really frustrating to be forced to learn to stop doing that motion for anything.
Plus, the moving of the members list and hiding it within the channel details page makes some moderation duties twice as hard-- I have to go locate the members list in a place that's incredibly out of the way, instead of being easily accessible to me. Of all the features on the list, I think this one is at least in my top three that I want back.
3. Channel details page
As I said before, I think the channel details page is an okay idea. But there's really no reason to put the member list there of all places, and we don't need a tab for media or links or files because there were tags in the search menu for a reason. It really really just majorly clutters things with a confusing and unnecessary amount of things that already were found in fine places and didn't need to be moved.
4. Pins
In the server I moderate, threads are a major feature for our members in categorizing ongoing conversation topics, and many members use them to document writing projects they're working on, or to discuss things they like. Pins in threads are very helpful in this organization, as it allows members to make an extensive list of warnings to those of whom need to steer clear of certain topics, and also allows them to make overviews of the thread contents (e.g. a summary of their writing project, or other important information).
In addition to #3, the pins system has been altered in a way that breaks a lot of things in threads. You can no longer view the pins in specific threads-- instead, they're bunched together with their parent channel. We have 52 active threads (active!) that all have their own pinned messages to warn of topics-- but nobody is able to see these anymore, instead having to scroll through not only all the pinned messages in the parent channel, but all of the pinned threads in the other 51 threads plus the pinned messages in the inactive threads. This renders the pin messages feature useless here, when we very much need it.
Editing this to say that not only is the in system in threads broken, too, but you can no longer see entire pins— you’re only given a PREVIEW of each pin.
Editing this again to say that one of the members in our server found the thread specific pins, and they’re in the SETTINGS MENU? What in the world? Of all the places you could put them, why there, when everything else is grouped in the new channel tab??
5. DMs tab
Honestly, I don't think DMs need to be in their own tab. You could access all of them by clicking the messages button at the top of the server list, and it was easy. All my messages appeared as an icon where I could easily see them, and respond to them as a result.
I've had the update for around 12 hours now, and I have missed every single DM I have been sent since I got it-- from four separate people, and I didn't see their messages until hours later. My messages are practically invisible where they are in this tab, and the red dot to signal a new message is so dull and tiny that I can't even see it most of the time unless I actively remember to check (and I have memory issues, so unless I'm specifically waiting for someone, I won't even realize it exists). The old UI had a big popup at the top of the server list to show I had an unread DM, if I hadn't already seen it yet because of ease of access, and this update has absolutely nothing to clue me in.
6. Cluttering of the search feature
I genuinely don't know what I'm looking at here, much less how to navigate it. From what I can tell, none of these tabs are filters, they just give me lists of things to scroll through, and the filters are now (like many other things) hidden in a tiny menu that's difficult to locate. None of these lists are necessary-- if I wanted to find a channel, I could scroll through the channel list. I don't need suggested search topics. I don't need a specific tab for media, pins, links, and files, because I can use the search filters to search for that specifically. If anything, I think it would be nice to have an update for those rather than this. (And it would be very nice to have the ability to search within specific threads rather than having to enter in the parent channel)
There also are no longer member suggestions from what I can see-- I have to manually type the entire username of someone to narrow it down. Searching from:scr only pulls up messages that have ‘scr’ in it, instead of suggesting my name. I don't know the base account names of everyone in the server I moderate in, and so unless I back out of the search function, go and locate the member on the server member list (which is again, very out of the way and hidden), memorize their base account name, and then type the entire thing into the search bar, I am unable to search for members, which is a HUGE staggering force, especially when it comes to moderation.
7. Various visual changes
I've been tipped off that I wasn't specific enough when I mentioned the ‘easier on the eyes' thing earlier on (thank you for letting me know!), so I'm moving it down here as another thing.
Along with the smaller text, the higher contrast is making it highly difficult for disabled users to even look at the app, let alone use it. I've seen many people mention that they're having a hard time using the app because they can't see it due to the contrast. Bringing back the old theme (I've heard it described as ‘nice and warm’) as the default and moving high-contrast to the list of themes is necessary for many user experiences.
I've been on and off Discord with this update for the past 12 hours now, and I still haven't figured out how to navigate to everywhere I need to be. This new UI is so unnecessarily cluttered and confusing, and stuffs features you can easily find elsewhere into packed menus that are difficult to navigate and even locate in the first place. It moves pre-existing features that seem necessary to the Discord experience into places where it's hard to find them, and hard to easily access them.
There are a few good features to come out of this, but myself and thousands of other people are having such a difficult time navigating this unnecessarily complex new UI. Please either revert these changes or find a middle ground, because this is really not working, not for accessibility or simplicity, and not for normal everyday use.
The fact that there is an area to provide feedback around the new UI update in the first place at least gives me a little hope, but Discord has been historically unresponsive to user feedback to big changes like this. I'm very much hoping that anyone from the team will listen to us when we say these things, and maybe take action.
Thank you.
- Scramblecat
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The new colors and the high contrast are hostile to disabled users :( I do appreciate the easier media searching, but it's pointless if I can't look at the app
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Gwanda That's what I was trying to get at when I said ‘the old layout was easier on the eyes’, yeah-- I'll edit the post to clarify that! And I have to agree. I hope they at the very least give you the option for the older colors, for y'all's sake. I've been seeing a lot of people saying the same thing.
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The first thing i noticed when i got the new update was that the member list was gone. and instead it open “reply to message”.
Loosing the easy access to the members list is the biggest loss and i want that back.
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this new ui is so clunnky, difficult, confusing, cluttered and just painful it even made me sign a pettition as i know discord only says they listen to their user base but everyone knows they ignore it same with the pain of voice notes which almost no one uses other than on accident. lets hope they listen now especially when it is formulated as well as this.
https://chng.it/xGKxCqsqKL4 -
Thank you for taking the time to write this. It’s a nice change from all the “I hate it” posts. I feel as though Discord will, hopefully, read the more in depth posts about why this UI change is so horrible and take our concerns into consideration and make big changes.
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Banana oou nah nah I agree honestly. I’m hoping Discord will actually listen to the overwhelming hatred this time, and I made this post to say that there’s ways to change things without destroying the entire UI, and that we’re not just being fussy because we hate change. People are always going to hate change, but this isn’t something minor that people can just ‘get used to’, as much as Discord wants that.
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This is probably the best review of the app I've seen so far.
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I was looking something like this. Yes. At first I was in my PC when I got new updates there I at first didn't see much I noticed when saw at the thread icon. After a while my server mates one by one started to complain and then when I went to my phone I immediately understood why, it is way to drastic change at once also without any control to what we actually want, I thought they could do change UI based on whoever likes which one. The biggest blow is infact the Member list and DM displacement. They are way too inconvenient to the update.
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Ohh, heyy, someone else had this same idea.
Going to bump this post, first off: deserves more attention, more work was put in, and it considers more perspectives than just “all good”/"all bad." THANK you for doing your part in giving specific and actionable feedback.
What seems to be the case, at least for the most part, is that users are okay with some of the functional changes. The pinned channels, personalised notifications, easier Private/Direct/Group Message/Channel creation, etc. What is maybe being less okay is the complete and total UI overhaul that came with those changes.
Hoping Discord devs consider some of this at least.2 -
I am grateful that you took the time to write this bolg for A New Mobile USER ( good or Bad Review) . A pleasant change from the numerous "I love it" posts from New UI users. I have the impression that I will, hopefully, read the longer articles explaining why this UI change is so terrible, take our complaints seriously, and implement significant modifications.
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