YouTube gets a huge design overhaul to streamline the platform and make it easier for users.
The biggest design change that YouTube has been through in years, as it tries to get rid of some of the clutter, improve the usability, and clear up the experience of billions of users.
YouTube has grown into a massive entertainment platform over 20 years since its inception, with long-form videos, Shorts, live streams, shopping, music and premium subscriptions.
This growth however posed a big design problem.
New buttons and features were added year after year, the layout was not consistent, unnecessary pop-ups and complicated user experience were present on the platform.
Now, YouTube is taking a different approach: removing complexity instead of adding more features.
The biggest design change that YouTube has announced in years.
Over the past year, Jonathan Terleski, design executive for YouTube, and his team have been working on what the company calls the biggest design overhaul in more than a year.
The idea is not to go full-bore visual rethink.
YouTube is instead pushing out hundreds of smaller enhancements that will make the platform easier and simpler to use.
The changes include:
Fewer unnecessary buttons
Cleaner navigation
Enhancements to the creator and user dashboards.
Better uniformity of design aspects
Better video-watching experiences
Terleski says that YouTube is at a stage where the platform is too complex given its size.
It’s not about more features.
The question is what do users need?
This is because YouTube became too complicated.
There was a time when YouTube was simple, when it was launched in 2005.
Users uploaded videos, watched the videos and interacted using simple comments.
However, in the course of 21 years, YouTube grew significantly.
Now the platform has:
More than 20 billion uploaded videos
Billions of monthly users:
YouTube Shorts
YouTube Premium
YouTube Shopping
Live streaming
Creator monetization tools
Music content
The introduction of each new feature brought with it extra controls and interface components.
Eventually, the design of YouTube became a series of discrete features.
Due to the different teams, there were inconsistencies and separate experiences for each product.
Developing Outside of the Feature-based Design
Over the years, YouTube made a lot of products based on performance metrics.
Teams optimized for goal(s) of:
More clicks
Longer viewing sessions
Higher engagement
Increased subscriptions
These are all the objectives that YouTube has used for its growth, and they also lead to a more cluttered interface.
The company, however, found that optimising each individual measure could have a detrimental impact on the overall experience for the user.
The new design philosophy is based on the premise that it asks:
“What would YouTube be like if it had been built in 2011 with all the knowledge we have now?”
This is a big paradigm change from feature overgrowth to simplicity.
The Design System for YouTube
One of the most significant internal changes took place.
In the past, design was done by various teams within YouTube.
For example:
YouTube Music had different design considerations.
Different teams for living room experiences
Mobile experiences were developed separately
This resulted in inconsistencies between products.
Now, YouTube is trying to move towards a more consistent design culture, in which teams work in concert with one another based on a set of shared principles.
The aim is to make YouTube work as one product, and not a bunch of products stitched and sewn together.
The importance of making small changes that can make a big difference.
According to YouTube, it’s the little things that can make the most impact.
Some potential improvements are:
Cleaner Video Pages
YouTube’s most crucial experience is the watch page.
The company’s priority is:
Reducing distractions
The significant actions will be made more obvious
Improving content discovery
The idea is to assist viewers in watching videos.
Simplified Controls
YouTube developed a host of actions about videos over time:
Share
Save
Download
Clip
Join
Shop
Subscribe
Like
Redesign will focus on the most commonly used actions.
Better Creator Experience
Creators are also a huge emphasis.
YouTube hopes creators can be better equipped to:
Managing channels
Understanding performance
Publishing content
Growing audiences
A more user-friendly creator experience could enhance the success rate of creators on the platform.
Why Design is so important for YouTube’s future.
The redesign of YouTube isn’t only cosmetic.
The company considers design to be a business strategy.
As competition grows from platforms like TikTok, Instagram Reels, and streaming services, holding on to users is increasingly challenging.
User interface confusion can lead to lost customers.
A more streamlined experience can motivate:
Longer viewing sessions
More frequent visits
Better creator engagement
Higher user satisfaction
YouTube thinks that making them easier to use will help keep them as one of the world’s biggest entertainment sites.
Simplifying a large platform is a challenge.
YouTube’s redesign is really really hard as there are already billions of people using it in different ways.
There are some people who just watch Shorts.
Some devote hours to viewing educational videos, podcasts, music, or live streams.
Creators use current tools used by their business.
If the changes are meant to remove unnecessary complexity, without altering existing behavior, this should be done with care, and with testing.
YouTube must balance:
Innovation
Familiarity
Creator needs
Viewer expectations
The New Era for Mature Platforms has arrived.
YouTube’s redesign is not unique to the company; it’s a trend that many tech giants have adopted.
The greatest challenge of platforms as they mature is not so much increasing their functionality as maintaining the complexity they’ve developed over the years.
Firms such as Google, Meta, and Apple have been taking a particular interest in:
Simplification
Consistency
Better user experiences
In the future, it might be less about the number of features digital products have, and more about how easy they are to use.
YouTube’s Long-Term Goal
YouTube is in a new phase of its existence after 20 years of development.
The platform is no longer attempting to demonstrate that it can offer more functionality.
Rather, it’s attempting to make those capabilities easier to access.
This design overhaul is a simple concept from the company:
YouTube doesn’t need to be the most feature rich for it to be a better experience — it needs to be the easiest place to find what users want without having to think about the design.
