The operational director of VKontakte responded to criticism of Durov and named 7 advantages of the redesign



    Today, Andrey Rogozov, the operational director of the VKontakte social network, published the post “7 key improvements in the new design of the VKontakte web version,” according to which, in his opinion, the redesign benefited VK. It was prompted by the recent publication of 7 points of criticism of the new design of social services. network from its founder, Pavel Durov.

    1. Communication has become more convenient. In the old design, the list of open dialogs was displayed at the top and covered part of the correspondence. Now it is displayed on the right side of the screen and does not take up useful space. Users participating in the redesign test began sending 6% more messages.


    2. Focus on content. The new smart feed algorithm changes the order of the news, displaying interesting entries above the rest. The font size and width of the records are optimally selected for comfortable reading and perception of information. As a result, in the new interface, users began to view 5% more records and 10% more likely to click “Like”.

    Apparently, we are talking about the “interesting at first” function, which is turned off by default and can be turned on by the user to read news in chronological order.

    3. Simplification of navigation. An additional column on the right made it possible to more effectively use the free space of the page. In particular, thanks to the block of recommended friends in the news, users began sending 12% more requests to friends.

    In fact, the removal of “possible friends” to the feed occurred from the main page of the user, which, due to the forced redirect to the news feed when entering the social network, began to be used much less frequently. It was not possible to find out where “possible friends” had gone, because instead of or together with advertising this block did not appear in the news feed instead of or along with the advertisement.

    4. The music section is faster. In the redesign, the audio recording service was completely rewritten, and the audio player was transferred from Flash technology to HTML5. These changes have significantly accelerated its work. As a result, the number of listening to audio recordings increased by 10%.

    Most likely, the switch to HTML5, which has nothing to do with the redesign directly, influenced the growth in listening. However, Andrei does not share the application of new technology and the change in appearance, "merging" these events into a single whole. At the same time, users have long been waiting for a more intelligent search in audio recordings and compilation of priority selections by originals / HQ, but so far no such innovations have been seen.

    5. Improved video player. Following the audio, and videos are converted from Flash to HTML5. The updated player starts faster and makes it easier to switch between videos. The control buttons have become larger and more convenient. Thanks to this, users are now watching 10% more videos.

    Approximately the same situation as with an increase in listening to audio recordings. The likely culprit is HTML5.

    6. New features. The new design made it possible to implement dozens of improvements, including a photo editor with the ability to apply stickers and text, as well as draw graffiti on top of photos, sticker tips in messages and comments, etc. For more details about all changes, click here: vk.com/live/review

    All these changes are exclusively “cosmetic” and do not carry any really useful functionality for all users.

    7. Secure connection. Together with the transition to redesign, all VKontakte users automatically switched to a secure encrypted connection using the HTTPS protocol. In addition, notifications about all authorizations on the page have been added - not a single entry will go unnoticed.

    Undoubtedly, an important update, as well as login alerts, which now do not need to go to settings and check activity by IP and devices. But, as in the situation with HTML5, the merits of implementing HTTPS are assigned, for some reason, to the redesign team.

    Andrei Rogozov gives statistical figures, not daring to challenge Durov’s criticism. In fact, the VKontakte operations director cited seven positive points as opposed to seven negative points presented by the former CEO and founder.

    One can argue with some of the points, while others, which do not raise any doubts about their usefulness (translating audio-visual content to HTML5 and using HTTPS instead of HTTP), unfortunately, are a merit of far from designers.

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