With 300 million monthly users, Skype is one of Microsoft Corp.’s biggest assets in the consumer software market. The company is now taking the service back to its roots in a bid to address recent usability concerns.

The update, announced Friday, undoes the main changes that Microsoft made to Skype as part of a controversial redesign last year. The company’s goal was to lure younger consumers from rivals such as Snapchat, but it only ended up complicating the interface for existing users.

Microsoft’s latest update focuses mainly on streamlining the mobile version of Skype. The company is shrinking the navigation bar to three self-explanatory buttons, Chats, Calls and Contacts, that now appear at the bottom of the app. The new menu does away with the two biggest features that rolled out as part of last year’s redesign.

The first was a Capture section that closely resembled Snapchat. It enabled users to record a video or image and then decorate it with various items ranging from handwritten text to ready-made graphics stickers. Highlights, the other capability axed by Microsoft, built on the former feature by providing the ability to create a gallery of related posts similar to Snapchat Stories.

Over in the desktop version, Microsoft has “toned down the visual range of the gradients” and introduced a minimalist theme based on Skype Classic. The company also took the opportunity to make a few more localized changes designed to make the interface less cluttered.

Microsoft has moved the core Chats, Calls, Contacts and Notifications navigation buttons to the top left corner of the desktop app, making them part of the sidebar in which Skype displays relevant items such as recent alerts. In conjunction, the company removed some of the purely decorative elements that previously shipped with the service.

Lastly, Microsoft announced that it has created a new online portal where Skype users can provide feedback about the service.

“We are listening to your feedback and are wholly committed to improving the Skype experience based on what you are telling us. We hope this updated design makes Skype easier to use and provides a better Skype experience,” Peter Skillman, Microsoft’s director of design for Skype and Outlook, wrote in the announcement.

Image: Microsoft