Reddit redesign concept

I love reddit. The content, not the site. I find myself on Imgur browsing reddit content all the time.

This seems like a red flag for their interface. Let’s take a look…

OK, so aesthetically it leaves something to be desired, but that’s not even the biggest problem. It’s the flow:

Sample flow on Reddit

Five clicks to view 3 posts? That’s a lot. Taking me back to the front page between each post just seems unnecessary.

Compare that to browsing Imgur:

Sample flow on Imgur

Much simpler. The time and mental energy it takes to hunt for the back button and find the next link on reddit is higher than mindlessly hitting → on Imgur.

It looks like we have a plan for how to streamline the user flow, so let’s turn our attention to the design of the front page itself.

Here are the major offenders:

• There’s too much going on. The page feels cluttered and my eyes don’t know where to look first.
• Small thumbnails. Most of the content is multimedia and is hard to preview with such small photos.
• Major features are hard to find. I didn’t even notice the search box until doing the redesign. It blends right in with the sign in.

With this in mind, let’s wireframe our redesign:

Here are some comments for less obvious features:

Time to go high-res:

Now that we have our basic style down, let’s wireframe the post page:

Comments for less obvious features:

In addition to simpler navigation, keeping the user on reddit.com and loading posts in an <iframe> gives the opportunity to display content while the user waits. A preview of one of the trending posts from the sidebar? You bet. Ads while the next link loads? Possible, but definitely worth A/B testing.

It’s worth mentioned that this design doesn’t force the user to change their behavior. Users who want to browse as they always have can continue to.

Let’s take this design high-res as well:

Love it? Hate it? Leave your thoughts below.