For quite some time, YouTube has been testing a new feature for Shorts. They are adding a new Save button to the UI in order to make it easier for viewers to save their favorite short clips.
This change will force YouTube to move the Dislike button from the main Shorts UI. This may have a bigger impact on how users interact with the Shorts clips.
As you know the current YouTube Shorts Player includes the Like and Dislike icons at the top of the right-hand UI icons. However, you may see the Dislike button removed from the UI in order to make room for the Save button. People who fall in the category of test subjects may already have started seeing this result.
Here is how YouTube bills this change.
“To make it easier to bookmark Shorts that you love, want to return to, or want to watch later, we’re experimenting with a “Save” button in the Shorts player. If you’re a viewer in the test group, you’ll see the ‘Save’ icon which you can use to save Shorts to a new or existing playlist. To make room for the Save button, we moved our Shorts player menu around. In this experiment, the “Dislike” button is now housed in the 3-dot menu icon. To dislike a Short and share feedback, click the 3-dot icon in the top right of the Short you’re watching then select ‘Dislike’ from the menu.”
According to this, from now on, you’ll only be able to like Shorts from the main UI but if you want to Dislike the clip, you’ll have to dig deeper into the UI.
Well, this could impact the Shorts feedback loop and how you refine the Shorts feed. We cannot say that for sure as the Shorts algorithm works on a number of factors including watch time and engagement.
Well, it is an interesting choice from YouTube’s point of view. It also points to the fact that people don’t often use the Dislike button as people thought it was intended at the beginning.
So, from now on, you’ll have the Dislike button in the three dots menu on the Shorts player.
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