Snapchat is rolling out a stripped-down version of the app to some users as part of a test to make the disappearing photo app easier to use, the company announced at the Snap Partner Summit on Tuesday. “Simple Snapchat” declutters the app's home screen by removing the Snap Map and Stories tabs and consolidates the navigation bar into three icons: Chat on the left, Camera in the middle, and Spotlight, Snapchat's TikTok rival, on the right.
Stories and Snap Map won't disappear completely from Simple Snapchat, but will be hidden away in other parts of the app. Stories will appear at the top of the app's Chat tab, and Snap Map will appear at the bottom. Stories will also be found in the Spotlight tab, enabled by Snap's new recommendation algorithm. In this test, Spotlight more directly resembles TikTok, combining short content from Snap creators and brands with Stories from a user's friends list into one scrollable feed.
However, Snapchat's dedicated section, Discover, does not appear to be part of Simple Snapchat. The feature launched in 2015 to allow brands to promote themselves with short-form videos in a section segregated from friends' content. Snap spokesperson Chloe Keusder said the test will include content from publisher partners in Spotlight, but it's unclear whether videos in the Discover section will be sent directly to Spotlight.
Image credit: Snap
The idea behind Simple Snapchat is to prioritize the three areas Snapchat wants to focus on: taking photos, chatting with friends, and providing short-form entertainment to compete with TikTok. Earlier this month, CEO Evan Spiegel said the changes were meant to make the app easier to use and address long-standing concerns that Snapchat is too difficult for older generations to navigate.
Simple Snapchat is currently rolling out to a small number of Snapchatters in a few countries, a company spokesperson said.
But Snapchat's core users haven't always responded favorably to major updates to its user experience. In 2018, Snap rolled out its first major redesign, squeezing Stories among the private messages on the app. At the time, it faced strong backlash from celebrities, advertisers, and even 1.2 million users via a Change.org petition. In the process of trying to attract a wider audience, Snapchat lost some of its loyal users.
Six years later, Snapchat is trying again with another update: It's moving Stories back to the private messaging section of the app, which sparked plenty of outrage last time and forced Snap to roll back parts of its redesign. This time, though, it's putting a dedicated bar for Stories in a more prominent location, which may ease some of the user concerns about the last redesign.