Snapchat’s ‘disruptive’ redesign will make app easier to understand

The social media app is facing a huge overhaul
New look: Snapchat is set for a major overhaul to try and bring in new users
Carl Court/Getty
Ben Travis8 November 2017

Snapchat is set for a major redesign, which the app creators admit will be ‘disruptive’ for long-term users.

The social media app unveiled plans for a design overhaul following a difficult financial report, claiming that Snapchat’s unintuitive design is stopping new users from getting on board.

The app helped pioneer features including posts that disappear after a period of time, ‘stories’, and augmented reality filters.

Most of these functions are now also found on other rival apps like Instagram and Facebook.

“One thing that we have heard over the years is that Snapchat is difficult to understand or hard to use, and our team has been working on responding to this feedback,” said Evan Spiegel, Snapchat CEO, in a statement about the proposed changes.

“As a result, we are currently redesigning our application to make it easier to use. There is a strong likelihood that the redesign of our application will be disruptive to our business in the short term, and we don’t yet know how the behaviour of our community will change when they begin to use our updated application.

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“We’re willing to take that risk for what we believe are substantial longterm benefits to our business.”

The company has also struggled recently with the launch of its Spectacles hardware, which upload point-of-view videos to the app, taking a $40 million (£30.46 million) charge on unsold units.

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