Reddit · Improving Search Usability and Relevancy

Reddit, the 20th most visited website in the world, is focused on building a website for social discussion but neglected to build a positive search experience, which has led users to abandon in-app search altogether. This case study is an end-to-end redesign that starts with user research and takes those insights to make search more relevant and seamless for Reddit’s typical users.

2023

Responsibility Product Design, Visual Design, Research

The first feature introduced is responsive keyword previews that indicate top and trending keywords that give the user the ability to course-correct their search.

The second feature introduced after hitting enter is top search results which curate top content by what users specifically are looking for when searching topics—Top Commented Posts, Most Upvoted Comments, and Top Subreddit.

Searching for content on Reddit is so cumbersome that users created their own workarounds outside of the app Reddit’s user base is comprised mainly of “lurkers” who don’t post content but use Reddit to consume content about current events, entertainment, or in-the-moment questions that they have. Most of these users use Reddit daily but think that the search feature is hot garbage. Instead, they use Google to search for Reddit content instead.

It boiled down to two user pain points:

Lack of relevance on search results upon first try When using the search bar, the unifying user goal identified from our interviews is to find in-the-moment content related to current events, gossip, or new entertainment. The issue is that after searching keywords, users can’t find what they’re searching for in the first scroll.

High friction sorting through results page to find high-quality discussion Once on the search results page, the user goal is to find high-quality discussion happening to click into. The issue is that users experience high cognitive load parsing through posts and looking through noise on the page in terms of titles, quantitative metrics, and available filters.

Users come to Reddit for content because it’s a treasure trove of anonymous opinions from anything relating to product reviews to life advice and would benefit from an intuitive search experience. As a business, Reddit makes money from targeted ads. If more users use in-app search, Reddit has more robust user metadata and a complete view of the user to serve them both meaningful content and ads.

Instead of barraging users with irrelevant ads, Reddit would now be able to target based on their most recent searches

Since I was focusing on relevancy and minimizing effort, I explored ways to improve the search experience by imagining a spectrum where one end gave users complete control and flexibility into their search, and the other end spoon-fed users what we expected them to want.

After sketching and showing them to a group of product designers who also use Reddit, there was interest in further exploring three ideations.

Keyword Previews Being able to see relevant keywords that would yield relevant results.

Top Results Sections The app telling users what was compelling content to consume.

Single Results Page for all Content Types A simplified view of all content types that would reduce the amount of swiping and clicking.

Since the original design goal was to reduce search friction, I wanted to use this context scale as a framework to ask questions about the new features we were exploring to make sure we were improving user flows and not overcomplicating them.

I came to the conclusion that less context is ultimately better for search bar previews.

I came to the conclusion that context paired with navigational freedom is better on the results page.

By combining some of the ideations, I was able to isolate two distinctive features we could build to improve search relevancy and reduce friction.

Keyword Previews This feature is inspired by Google's mental model for search. After showing a group of 5 Redditors, they voted this as a top feature because users can get instantaneous feedback on which keywords would yield relevant results and can quickly course-correct before hitting enter and seeing results.

Top Results Tab This feature is inspired by Twitter and reduces friction for users by automatically serving them results for posts, comments, and subreddits for what they are most likely to sort by. The same group voted this as a top feature because they liked the app curating for them what was noteworthy of consuming rather than needing to find it themselves.

Since our design goal is to decrease friction and cognitive load needed to find and consume content, my ideations looked at ways we could reduce the amount of signals. I chose to focus on lightening the load on three specific frames.

After running a usability test with 6 Redditors, we saw the users scored the current search a 4 out of 10 on an intuitive scale, which we were able to improve with our two new features.

I also ran an experiment to test my hypothesis that users only needed one search affordance on the home page. I created two search bar flows to see which flow users preferred and Flow 2 offered more user value.

Previews make sense, but users want even more indication of what they should be consuming Based on user feedback about expectations with how keyword previews were stack-ranked and further validation that users are typically searching for current events, I changed the previews to display trending keywords at the top to further reduce effort in visual scanning.

Based on issues with reading comments on the Top Results Tab, I also redesigned the comment section to reduce the noise of quantitative metrics and extraneous links so that instead, users could focus more on whether the comment was high quality enough to warrant a click.

Users better understand how to initiate a search, select relevant keyword previews, and navigate the Top Results Bar for content.

All users interviewed indicated that Keyword Previews helped them know what is possible to search for and got them closer to what they should be searching for.

The Top Results Tab provided them with both interesting content and communities they’d want to click into, creating a differentiated experience from what they would find using a Google search.

Having Keyword Previews would make the largest impact on getting users to relevant searches and is a manageable engineering lift since search logic for subreddit previews and prioritization already exists.

Impact I think about success metrics in terms of leading indicators that align with user goals and lagging indicators that align with our business goal of serving more targeted content and ads

Although I have not launched these features, these are KPIs I would measure and the results I hypothesize:

Increased number of in-app searches

Reduced time spent per each search

Increased time spent in-app

Increased average ad conversions due to better user profile

Learnings The future of this problem space continues to be one where one size fits many, but one size does not fit all No one user is the same in how they search for content on Reddit.

From my usability testing, I could see the difference especially across generations. Millennials and legacy Reddit users search for content with a mental model similar to navigating file structures on a computer. Some even prefer clicking to find what they are looking for rather than using a search bar at all. Gen Z and newer Reddit users search for content almost exclusively with a search bar and by topic similar to Spotlight Search on a Mac.

As designers, all we can do is continue to accommodate as many modalities as possible. Similar to how supermarkets provide aisle signs, clerks ready to answer questions, and categorized layouts to help us find a product—our digital world should also provide many ways to reach the same destination.