YouTube UI Updates: New Features Like Threaded Comments and Audio Replies

Key Highlights

• UI Refresh: YouTube has introduced updated user interface elements to enhance navigation and viewing experiences.
• Voice Replies: Creators can now respond to comments using voice notes, a feature expanding to more users.
• Course Access: YouTube is increasing access to its courses option, providing additional monetization opportunities for creators.
• Comment Threading: The platform has implemented threaded comments, allowing users to engage more deeply with discussions.

YouTube has announced a raft of new updates, including a UI refresh, expanded voice replies, expanded access to courses, an update on fixable violations, and more.

First off, YouTube’s rolling out some refreshed UI elements in order to boost appeal, and make the platform easier to navigate, particularly in relation to Shorts and viewing on Connected TVs.

As you can see in this example, the playback display has been updated “to deliver a more immersive and unified viewing experience,” with translucent buttons overlaid on the screen, and more intuitive options for playback.

YouTube’s also refreshed its video descriptions, which will now sample colors that appear in the video content, while it’s also updated the double-tap to seek feature.

As per YouTube:

“This update includes visual improvements to the intuitive gesture that lets you move forward or backward in videos by double-tapping the screen. When you double-tap, text will display momentarily on the screen, indicating the exact number of seconds the video is moving, for example, 10 seconds forward. And the duration of the skip will align with your individual settings, which can be configured in increments such as 5, 10, and 15 seconds.”

On a related note, YouTube’s also rolling out threaded comments, which will support three levels of threading in the replies panel.

As you can see in this example, with comment threading active, viewers will be able to tap through on a comment to see the full conversation related to that reply within an expanded comment tree. YouTube says that once the third level is reached, any additional replies will be displayed as flattened responses in the thread.

YouTube launched a test of threaded comments back in July, and it’s now rolling it out to all users, which will change how comments are displayed below your clips.

YouTube’s also rolling out custom likes based on the content category that you’re viewing.

“For example, when you use the like button on content categorized as music, the resulting animation may appear as an animated musical note. If the content is sports-related, the animation might feature a basketball.”

YouTube’s also rolling out updated cards for artists, which will be displayed in search results for the top searched musicians.

The updated format is designed to make it easier to engage with music content in the app.

The updated format will be made available to musicians with at least one official music release, and a minimum of 100,000 subscribers in the app.

YouTube is also expanding access to voice replies, which enables creators to respond to comments with a voice note. Originally launched in December last year (then expanded to more creators in February), YouTube is now giving “a few hundred thousand creators” access to the option.

As you can see in this example, voice replies, as it sounds, is a pretty straightforward process for recording a short voice response (up to 30 seconds) to a comment, which you can then send in-stream.

It could be another way to personalize your messaging, and enhance engagement with your audience.

And in addition to expanded access, eligible creators will also now be able to create a voice reply using Studio Mobile, as well as the YouTube main app.

YouTube’s also expanding access to its courses option for creators, which will provide another monetization opportunity.

Originally launched in beta with selected creators back in 2022, YouTube’s Courses option enables creators to offer free or paid learning programs on their channel.

And now, more creators will be able to build their own learning streams.

As per YouTube:

“Up till now, courses have only been available to a small subset of creators on YouTube. Now, we’re excited to share that we’re expanding ad-supported courses to creators with access to Advanced features this week.”

YouTube’s Advanced features are available to creators “with a sufficient channel history,” or those who’ve confirmed their ID. That then gives you access to additional tools for your channel, including the capacity to create a course.

Which could be a big draw for specialist channels, or those who are already producing educational content.

In addition to this, YouTube says that courses will also now be displayed with a special course badge on the Watch page, while courses may also be featured on youtube.com/courses for easy discovery by new audiences.

“When a viewer finishes watching all of the videos in a course, they’ll receive a badge, which appears in their library. Within YouTube Studio, course owners will be able to see the views and watch time for each course and dive deeper into advanced analytics to see metrics like audience and revenue.”

YouTube says that it’s looking to expand access to courses even more in future.

Finally, on “fixable violations,” and updates to YouTube’s appeal for certain content restrictions.

Last year, YouTube began enabling creators to remove elements of their content that have led to Community Guidelines violations, in order to reduce the impacts of broad-scale removals and bans.

It’s now expanding this to content that’s received an official warning, which will give creators another way to avoid more significant penalties and impacts.

This feature will be limited to creators with access to YouTube’s advanced features, and creators will only be able to submit one fix attempt per video, while it also won’t be available for more extreme policy violations.

So there are some limits, but for those who are eligible, the option to revise your content will be available in YouTube Studio.

You can learn more about the revised official warning process here.

Some significant and interesting updates, which could relate to your YouTube strategy.