VKontakte has updated its mobile application

The social network VKontakte has released an updated version of its mobile application, which has received a new design. The TJ publication writes about this with reference to company representatives.

“The last time we updated the application on a large scale was two years ago . A lot has changed since then: services, trends, tools. It’s time to streamline it all, and at the same time prepare the groundwork for the future,” the social network’s blog says about the innovations.

The redesign removed unnecessary objects from the app to help users focus on communication and content. At the bottom there are now five main tabs: “News”, “Review”, “Messages”, “Friends” and “Profile”. As for bookmarks, documents and other auxiliary sections, they are available from the side menu.

“We completely rethought the design and emphasized opportunities for communication and self-expression. We changed the tabs at the bottom of the screen, which provide quick access to the most important sections,” said Olga Frolova, deputy technical director of VKontakte.

Meet the new version of the VKontakte application! It has already appeared among some users and will become available to everyone in the coming weeks.

We have streamlined all the features that we gradually added over two years. Now everything is in its place. Read more: https://t.co/qlSVjtwwqM pic.twitter.com/gPNfjxsmQf

— VK (@vkontakte) February 19, 2020

The updated "News" tab displays posts from friends and communities, as well as stories and an "Interesting" section. In addition, thematic feeds and the social network’s own media – “Focus” – are available in this section. The built-in messenger has lost unnecessary separators and bulky headers, and also received updated icons and fonts.

User profiles have also been redesigned: the block with the latest photos has become larger and buttons for quick actions have appeared on the pages, including transferring money, sending a gift or calling the user.

The company noted that one hundred thousand VKontakte users gained access to the updated application in October last year. Three months later, the developers conducted a survey among them, and 71% of participants reported that the new application was better than the previous version.