Fri, 02 Dec 2022 00:00:00 UTC
Well, it finally happened: Discord made a change so bad for accessibility that I literally cannot use their platform anymore without external modification. They're rolling out a new custom font for all the main text on the platform, and that includes all message text. [ref 1] The font is called gg sans and I can't read more than a couple sentences of it without it actually hurting. I don't know why they keep doing things like this. Do they not want people using their platform?
This started last year, May 2021, when Discord rebranded. [ref 2] Cool, good for them. I have no issue with a company changing their branding. What I do have an issue with is companies changing their branding to something that is genuinely painful to look at. This rebrand included a new logo, a new font for headings and their wordmark, and, most notably, a new color. This new color, which we will refer to as "new blurple" to differentiate it from the pre-rebrand "old blurple", is highly problematic. Many people immediately reported that looking at the new color for longer than a few seconds resulted in eyestrain and migraines. [ref 3] The new font was a problem too, with many people reporting that it was difficult to read.
I was able to switch to light theme to somewhat mitigate these issues. Others were not so fortunate, and many were forced to choose between using a third party client or leaving the platform entirely. The font was still hard to read on light theme but it was at least doable and it's not like I really needed channel names anyway since I was basically just using muscle memory to get around at that point. The color was still painful to look at but at least I could use the platform if I was careful to not look directly at anything blurple for more than a second. Eventually Discord added a color saturation slider but it has only ever been available on desktop and web and the setting resets itself to 100% all the time. For anyone wondering, 75% gives the result closest to old blurple.
The thing that bothers me most about the whole rebrand situation is that despite all the severe community backlash they never did anything about it other than add the color saturation setting. I can't find any source for this because it's hard to search Reddit comments from 18 months ago but Discord made some statements in response to being called out for their blatant disregard for accessibility. They claimed they worked with many members of the community and various accessibility experts to ensure that the rebrand wouldn't be an issue. Clearly that is not the case.
In August, Discord started rolling out a major change to their Android app. [ref 4] The goal was to unify the codebase between the Android app and the iOS app. In practice this meant taking the iOS app and stuffing it onto Android because it's a React Native app and you can do that for some reason. When they first announced this change everyone knew it was bad news. Many people tried their hardest to avoid the new app for as long as possible, but Discord set a hard cutoff for when the old app would stop working: September 1st. I didn't make attempts at avoiding the update, but I also didn't rush to get it immediately either. When it finally updated, my fears were confirmed. Over the next few days I would collect a long list of things that were wrong with the new app. Some of these issues still haven't been fixed 4 months after release. Digging up one of my old lists here and rephrasing a little:
Over the last month or two I've been slowly migrating friends over to Matrix as I begin to use Discord less and less. I knew I wanted to stop using Discord eventually but I didn't know when that day would come. Last night I sent out a message to almost all of the people I frequently talk to on the platform informing them that the font change was the final straw and that I would be uninstalling Discord from all my devices, effective immediately. I intend to check Discord from time to time using a browser but I doubt it will even be a mostly daily occurrence after a week or two. It's not uncommon for me to go a day or two without touching a computer and even if I am at a computer Discord isn't likely to be at the front of my mind. For now I'm happy spending my time on Matrix, and I hope that doesn't change any time soon.
[ref 1] https://support.discord.com/hc/en-us/articles/9507780972951-gg-sans-Font-Update-FAQ Discord - gg sans: Font Update FAQ
[ref 2] https://support.discord.com/hc/en-us/articles/1500009438682 Discord - A Fresh New Look to Celebrate Our 6th Birthday
[ref 3] https://reddit.com/r/discordapp/comments/ndmdqy/discord_rebrand_eyestrain_and_migraines_an_issue/ Reddit - u/blazerules on r/discordapp - Discord Rebrand: Eyestrain and Migraines. An issue of accessibility. Purely user hostile redesign.
[ref 4] https://discord.com/blog/android-react-native-framework-update Discord - An Exciting Update to Discord for Android