Clubhouse Teardown by UX Expert Peter Ramsey

Last year, the ambitious startup Clubhouse appeared in Silicon Valley, which the creators themselves loudly called the next-generation social network. Now everyone, without exception, began to write about it. UX expert Peter Ramsey recently discussed some of the Clubhouse UX design issues with reporter Steve O'Hear. While the app is still a closed social network that can only be accessed by invitation, all of these problems could be significant once access becomes open.

Homepage

In particular, Peter Ramsey paid special attention to the Homepage. It is a well-known fact that creating a competent content feed is not easy at all. Developers need to think about which posts will be shown, in what order, and how they can be filtered. By and large, the Homepage is where the acquaintance with the social network begins. Here you see a list of available rooms with different conversations. When you scroll all the way down, you will need to follow other users to find new rooms.

This suggests that Clubhouse offers you content based on your subscriptions. If you don't follow the suggested people, the list of the available materials will be limited. According to Peter Ramsey, such an approach is not a problem at this stage. However, in the future, as the audience expands, developers will have to find a new method of content selection to keep the Homepage relevant, such as the search page on Instagram.

Aha Moments

The reporter Steve O'Hear recalled that when Twitter first started out, its developers noticed an interesting pattern. If a user has subscribed to 30 people or more, they are more likely to continue using this social network. They called this phenomenon an "aha moment," that is, now the product has a special value for a customer. Some startups took this idea literally, forgetting that it should not be a random set of people but those who are really interesting to the user.

According to experts, Clubhouse developers also adhere to this theory, selecting 50 users for you in advance. And it explains the exceptional popularity of several accounts on this social network. Some people are included in such collections more often than others. Steve O'Hear shared that he created several accounts with lists of completely opposite interests, and still, he was offered the same users. However, he was not warned that the content on the Homepage is based on his subscriptions. If you want to adjust it, you will have to unsubscribe from each user manually. At first, Clubhouse imposed accounts of investors or founders of the social network on new customers.

Clubhouse Success and Troubleshooting

Despite these and many other disadvantages of UX design, the popularity of Clubhouse is only growing. However, as the audience expands, it becomes necessary to make adjustments to the methods of selecting and filtering content. An increase in the number of users can reduce the value of a given project and communication culture in general. Let's hope that the developers will make this social network more user-friendly.