How does Reddit translate from desktop to mobile?

Let’s take a look at “The front page of the internet”, glorious ol’ Reddit. If you don’t know what Reddit is, it is a huge sector on the internet that features user created forum pages for chatter and discussion. Lots of memes and unfiltered content. We will be looking at how this site displays and functions from a desktop vs a mobile device.

Of course, let’s start off with the Home Page.

Desktop

Mobile (iPhone X) gives popup to either open in app or web browser. We shall stick with the site for this comparison!

Mobile (after logging in/continuing)

Right off the bat, the mobile version is just a horizontally squished version of the full site but prioritizes the main content which is the Post Feed. This is convenient to keep the experience consistent when switching devices. Awesome!

With less screen real estate, the mobile site opts out of additional icons as seen at the top right ribbon of the desktop. However, most of the functions are still accessible via some other drop-downs.

Desktop: You can see the spaced out icons, or dropdowns as wider buttons/panels.

Mobile: Reflected here are mostly the same information as the desktop in the same relative locations of the top banner.

To note at this point, it seems the mobile version has a dark banner in comparison the desktop. I think this may have been a good way to to create contrast on a smaller screen to make the main subsections more noticeable.

Opening a subreddit a page, we can see some more dramatic visual differences. Of course, with the bigger screen, you get access to the full sized banner photo set. Seems the page color is lost on the mobile version. Not a big deal as I think the content is much clearer on the mobile version.

Opening a post presents as so with desktop on left, mobile on right. On both, you still have quick access to up/downvote, Award, Share, Comment. What seems missing on mobile are Text formatting for comments, Save, Hide, and Reporting.

Those missing options are still accessible with a single tap on the top right 3 circles as well as more.

To note, the desktop version includes some fun little features like the Powerups which is not featured on mobile viewing.

Overall, the main functions of the usual browsing experience is consistent across desktop to mobile. I don’t think the mobile is lacking anything significant and it actually makes great use of the screen real estate. If you’re familiar with either platform, transitioning to the other is not too big a challenge. I guess you could consider this good design in that case!