Usability of pinned messages greatly reduced with new UX

I don’t hate the new UI, so that’s not what this suggestion is about. The look and feel is very subjective. However with the new UX tweaks it has made using pins objectively more difficult.

PREVIOUS BEHAVIOR:

Press the pins button, pulling up a new window with a list of pinned messages.
Media and content was previewed, you could scroll through the pinned messages and see every embedded image if it was a pinned image, or the entire content of the message if it was a text message.
This is what pins are for, to be able to quickly reference through a list of previous messages and find what you want.

NEW BEHAVIOR:

Currently, pulling up the pins on mobile pulls up a list of compact message references. Images are referenced with a generic icon as to not take up space, and messages are compacted to a couple lines at most. This makes it very difficult to see what pin im actually trying to find, especially if the pins consist mostly of images or embedded content. There is no convenient way to preview without clicking the pin and being dragged over to the message, making it a game of trial and error to find what I want.

With respect to the design team, this is a pretty awful usability downgrade. I won’t hark on that too much, but I do think it’s worth pointing out that good UX is about minimizing the amount of effort it takes to do a task. And I have just spent several minutes trying to find a pinned image because I’m now forced to tap each pin to see if it’s the one I’m looking for.

SOLUTION:

I’m not gonna say “just bring back the old design!” Because that’s counterproductive. The best I can ask for is to just make it so that any and all pinned messages are displayed in their entirety. Whether it’s a full block of text or an embedded image. I want to see the messages deemed so important that they are pinned. This isn’t just for memes in DMs, this is also pretty crucial for pinned messages that contain FAQs or rules for a given channel in many large specialized servers. Being able to view the message at a glance is important.

If nothing else, I wouldn’t mind a compact mode and a cozy mode if it’s absolutely imperative. But I think the compact mode is inherently counterproductive when it comes to the spirit of pins.

CommanderBroccoli

16 dicembre 2023 08:36

I second this. Ideally, they'll add a compact - cozy toggle like they already have in their advanced options for the DM list. Additionally, they could add a setting as to if you want an image-preview or not.

Madaᚼ

17 dicembre 2023 12:51

The people who designed the layout obviously does not use Discord on mobile. So glad I'm not paying for nitro anymore.

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