Dear Discord,

I appreciate the experimentation with how the mobile app is being handled, with optimizations, new features, and more being added to benefit the user experience. Recently, you have rolled out a new layout to the mobile app as a way to potentially better handle people’s needs. While opinions can be different for other users, I personally feel that the look of the new app clashes with what Discord’s original direction was, as well as how different it is compared to the desktop layout.

For starters, I can understand the change, as its always nice to try something new. However, not all changes are a good idea, and this is an example of it. When Discord launched, it wasn’t intended to be the average social networking platform on the Internet. You didn’t have all those likes, reposts, things like that. It really gave Discord a “new breath of fresh air” for those wishing to seek an alternative to other social media platforms if they feared that it would be too overwhelming for them to see. This new layout appears to be the complete opposite of what the original view of Discord was supposed to be. I can completely understand the change of CEOs, since they all have different views and ideas. However, it should not be entirely up to the creator to decide the changes, as consumer feedback is very important.

I also feel that this new layout of the mobile version of Discord clashes with the Desktop version of the app a lot. The older layout of the Discord mobile app was close to the desktop version of the app. It was near identical to it, with how you can view channels, messages, etc. However, this new layout feels like a stretch too far away from the desktop app itself. While other mobile versions of social media apps have kept the similarities to the desktop fairly consistent, and at most identical between both the desktop and mobile versions, Discord’s approach to this drastically misdefines the concept of a similarity of products released on more-powerful and less-powerful devices. While it is true for video games to be developed with separate ideas, engines, or companies behind it for different systems, it is often important to create an experience that while it may not live up to the other versions, it still has enough content to make sure you don’t miss out. Now, take this analogy I gave and apply it to social media services. As seen from other social media platforms, there may have been things stripped down from the mobile app, but nothing important is ever lost thanks to how smoothly transitioned the work between the mobile and desktop versions of the service are. With Discord’s attempt, it unfortunately falls short as it doesn’t meet the sufficient requirements to make a mobile version of the app that ensures you don’t miss out on the essentials. There could have been many things lost from the new layout compared to the old layout, and even to the desktop version as a whole. Thankfully, there is an option to toggle between the old and new layout. Some people say the toggling between the old and new layout is unnecessary, as the new layout accommodates for accessibility. I am fully in support of how the new layout accommodates for accessibility, but I worry that a lack of an option to change the layout may overwhelm people with how the new layout is structured, which in turn could cause users to refuse to use the app ever again, or just stick to the desktop version of the app.

In conclusion, there are a lot of potentially negative consequences in introducing this new layout. While I am glad that you included an option to toggle between the old and new layout, I worry it may be removed in the future. If you have and consideration to keep this new layout permanent, please reconsider your decisions and opt to have both layouts supported, not just for the user experience, to keep similarities between the mobile and desktop versions of the app, and to also not become so similar to other social media platforms on the market.

With kind regards,

yoav the yoshi#3177