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I tried the new Twitter interface, it was so bad that if I hadn't been able to go back to the normal one, I would have stopped using twitter. It had successfull

I tried the new Twitter interface, it was so bad that if I hadn't been able to go back to the normal one, I would have stopped using twitter. It had successfully reduced the density of information by splashing whitespace everywhere on the page and navigation on it was way inferior.

rdtwo 7y ago
So like new reddit? And digg before it
- baud147258 7y ago
  I went to take a look to a sub reddit this week, after a few months of not going there and their new design has gotten way worse. I mean only a comment depth of only ONE? Edit: I retested it on Firefox and at least there I had a decent comment depth.
  - Already__Taken 7y ago
    And if you click read more, it's only to read 1 more level. You have to keep clicking read more all the way down...
  - pixelperfect 7y ago
    If/when old.reddit.com stops working, I will overcome my Reddit addiction once and for all.
    - dmix 7y ago
      The native mobile apps are good which is Reddit’s only saving grace. It’s so easy to design something for designs sake while ignoring the fundamental reasons people use the site - first and foremost the content, not the site looking visually good or some clever card pattern or other UI concept. The whole reason Digg got blasted was how it lost information density and jumped on the ‘web 2.0’ bandwagon without improving the user experience.
      - rdtwo 7y ago
        The new reddit is significantly worse but I think it got redesigned with ad revenue as top priority
- Already__Taken 7y ago
  As far as I can tell, subreddits custom sidebars are missing. That's insane they ignored that.
- diminoten 7y ago
  You realize the site redesign isn't why Digg failed, right? At least not the literal UI part, anyway. They formalized power users by giving them outsized control of content, and that is what drove people off the platform, not because the site was less pretty...
markdog12 7y ago
I don't like it either. How do I use the older version?
- steveklabnik 7y ago
  There used to be an opt-out, but the endpoint has been removed. I'm not aware of a way to go back at this point.
  - baud147258 7y ago
    I had the luck of nopping out of the new version pretty quickly.
    - steveklabnik 7y ago
      I did too but they kept changing it back.
- Avery3R 7y ago
  Set your user agent to `Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.3; Trident/7.0; rv:11.0) like Gecko`
  - steveklabnik 7y ago
    My twitter followers have confirmed that this works!
    - trazire 7y ago
      For me, deleting all cookies and logging back in works.
      - eps 7y ago
        Neither this nor resetting one of the cookies to "off" (another method) works at all times. These are client-side overrides. However, the user-agent spoofing works because it fakes IE11 on Windows 7 and it triggers a server-side override.
TheSoftwareGuy 7y ago
>reduced the density of information by splashing whitespace everywhere on the page and navigation on it was way inferior. For some reason i'm noticing this happen on a ton of different platforms and I seriously don't like it. I didn't get a bigger phone screen so that devs could waste more space
- geodel 7y ago
  > I didn't get a bigger phone screen so that devs could waste more space But devs have unilaterally decided that bigger screens and more powerful hardware is for them to hog and not for you to do efficient/more things in the same time.
- Mindwipe 7y ago
  I really hope the next big competitive move in browsers is per site saving of zooming options, and automated tools to remove whitespace padding. I would honestly pay good money for a browser that removed 95% of whitespace on most sites.
  - hollerith 7y ago
    >I really hope the next big competitive move in browsers is per site saving of zooming options If you use Ctrl-+ to make the text larger, both FF and Chrome already remember how large you made it and use that size every time you visit that site from then on. What am I missing?
jghn 7y ago
People keep telling me that more whitespace is better, and I keep no longer using websites that manage to eclipse some breaking point of too much whitespace. Clearly folks like you & myself are in the minority, but I don't get it.
- Benjammer 7y ago
  You have different definition of "better" than does Twitter the business
  - jghn 7y ago
    What I mean is that I've been told by UI/UX experts that more whitespace is demonstrably better for users. I personally disagree for me, but I'll buy that I'm in the minority.
    - Benjammer 7y ago
      I don't mean to be pedantic here, but again, I think you have to further unpack how different parties interpret the word "better." A UI/UX expert trying to drive new user engagement has a different definition of "better" than one trying to lengthen the average user-session length of "power users" above some usage threshold, for a random example. Or someone optimizing the new user sign-up flow. If the goal is information density, then yes, whitespace can often be antithetical to that. If you are trying to make money with a website/app, increasing whitespace can be done for any of a myriad of reasons depending on business goals. The idea of having one answer to "is whitespace better," and saying "experts say yes but I say no" is just such a myopic view of the world of interface design...
- coldpie 7y ago
  Information density has been cratering over the past decade. Every redesign adds centimeters of whitespace around every element. I guess maybe it's touchscreen-motivated, but it sure does get tiresome on desktops.
  - 7y ago
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
fancyfish 7y ago
FWIW, you can still use TweetDeck[1] which has better density, customizable media size, and multi-column views. Previously I just used it for following live events but switched when the desktop site got mobile-ified. I also left feedback on the redesign. I pray they keep around the alternatives like this for a dense display format on desktop. [1] https://tweetdeck.twitter.com/ https://tweetdeck.twitter.com/
- jpindar 7y ago
  Tweetdeck also has strictly chronological order, with the Home and Activity feeds kept separate.
- baud147258 7y ago
  Tweetdeck is lacking the built-in translation tool that's present on Twitter, though. (I just spotted that because there's a Tweet in Brazilian at the top of my timeline)
dorfsmay 7y ago
What? How can you switch back to the old style?
coffeeling 7y ago
Uh, is that just a kneejerk feeling of "there is more wasted space" vs. the reality? Because I did get an initial kneejerk "shove this mobile the fuck out of my desktop" reaction when I tried the new design. But I checked, and the tweet boxes themselves are a bit wider and a bit taller in the redesign. Even so, though, I can see just as many text-heavy tweets on screen with the new UI as with the old one because the UI itself wastes less screen real estate - and that's with the second-smallest, default font option. The same applies to tweets with heavy picture use: I can see a larger portion of a chopped-off tweet with the redesign than I can with the old desktop UI. With the smallest font size option, it's not even a contest and the redesign wins handily.

rdtwo 7y ago

So like new reddit? And digg before it

baud147258 7y ago
I went to take a look to a sub reddit this week, after a few months of not going there and their new design has gotten way worse. I mean only a comment depth of only ONE? Edit: I retested it on Firefox and at least there I had a decent comment depth.
- Already__Taken 7y ago
  And if you click read more, it's only to read 1 more level. You have to keep clicking read more all the way down...
- pixelperfect 7y ago
  If/when old.reddit.com stops working, I will overcome my Reddit addiction once and for all.
  - dmix 7y ago
    The native mobile apps are good which is Reddit’s only saving grace. It’s so easy to design something for designs sake while ignoring the fundamental reasons people use the site - first and foremost the content, not the site looking visually good or some clever card pattern or other UI concept. The whole reason Digg got blasted was how it lost information density and jumped on the ‘web 2.0’ bandwagon without improving the user experience.
    - rdtwo 7y ago
      The new reddit is significantly worse but I think it got redesigned with ad revenue as top priority
Already__Taken 7y ago
As far as I can tell, subreddits custom sidebars are missing. That's insane they ignored that.
diminoten 7y ago
You realize the site redesign isn't why Digg failed, right? At least not the literal UI part, anyway. They formalized power users by giving them outsized control of content, and that is what drove people off the platform, not because the site was less pretty...

markdog12 7y ago

I don't like it either. How do I use the older version?

steveklabnik 7y ago
There used to be an opt-out, but the endpoint has been removed. I'm not aware of a way to go back at this point.
- baud147258 7y ago
  I had the luck of nopping out of the new version pretty quickly.
  - steveklabnik 7y ago
    I did too but they kept changing it back.
Avery3R 7y ago
Set your user agent to `Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.3; Trident/7.0; rv:11.0) like Gecko`
- steveklabnik 7y ago
  My twitter followers have confirmed that this works!
  - trazire 7y ago
    For me, deleting all cookies and logging back in works.
    - eps 7y ago
      Neither this nor resetting one of the cookies to "off" (another method) works at all times. These are client-side overrides. However, the user-agent spoofing works because it fakes IE11 on Windows 7 and it triggers a server-side override.

TheSoftwareGuy 7y ago

>reduced the density of information by splashing whitespace everywhere on the page and navigation on it was way inferior. For some reason i'm noticing this happen on a ton of different platforms and I seriously don't like it. I didn't get a bigger phone screen so that devs could waste more space

geodel 7y ago
> I didn't get a bigger phone screen so that devs could waste more space But devs have unilaterally decided that bigger screens and more powerful hardware is for them to hog and not for you to do efficient/more things in the same time.
Mindwipe 7y ago
I really hope the next big competitive move in browsers is per site saving of zooming options, and automated tools to remove whitespace padding. I would honestly pay good money for a browser that removed 95% of whitespace on most sites.
- hollerith 7y ago
  >I really hope the next big competitive move in browsers is per site saving of zooming options If you use Ctrl-+ to make the text larger, both FF and Chrome already remember how large you made it and use that size every time you visit that site from then on. What am I missing?

jghn 7y ago

People keep telling me that more whitespace is better, and I keep no longer using websites that manage to eclipse some breaking point of too much whitespace. Clearly folks like you & myself are in the minority, but I don't get it.

Benjammer 7y ago
You have different definition of "better" than does Twitter the business
- jghn 7y ago
  What I mean is that I've been told by UI/UX experts that more whitespace is demonstrably better for users. I personally disagree for me, but I'll buy that I'm in the minority.
  - Benjammer 7y ago
    I don't mean to be pedantic here, but again, I think you have to further unpack how different parties interpret the word "better." A UI/UX expert trying to drive new user engagement has a different definition of "better" than one trying to lengthen the average user-session length of "power users" above some usage threshold, for a random example. Or someone optimizing the new user sign-up flow. If the goal is information density, then yes, whitespace can often be antithetical to that. If you are trying to make money with a website/app, increasing whitespace can be done for any of a myriad of reasons depending on business goals. The idea of having one answer to "is whitespace better," and saying "experts say yes but I say no" is just such a myopic view of the world of interface design...
coldpie 7y ago
Information density has been cratering over the past decade. Every redesign adds centimeters of whitespace around every element. I guess maybe it's touchscreen-motivated, but it sure does get tiresome on desktops.
- 7y ago

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

fancyfish 7y ago

FWIW, you can still use TweetDeck[1] which has better density, customizable media size, and multi-column views. Previously I just used it for following live events but switched when the desktop site got mobile-ified. I also left feedback on the redesign. I pray they keep around the alternatives like this for a dense display format on desktop. [1] https://tweetdeck.twitter.com/ https://tweetdeck.twitter.com/

jpindar 7y ago
Tweetdeck also has strictly chronological order, with the Home and Activity feeds kept separate.
baud147258 7y ago
Tweetdeck is lacking the built-in translation tool that's present on Twitter, though. (I just spotted that because there's a Tweet in Brazilian at the top of my timeline)

dorfsmay 7y ago

What? How can you switch back to the old style?

coffeeling 7y ago

Uh, is that just a kneejerk feeling of "there is more wasted space" vs. the reality? Because I did get an initial kneejerk "shove this mobile the fuck out of my desktop" reaction when I tried the new design. But I checked, and the tweet boxes themselves are a bit wider and a bit taller in the redesign. Even so, though, I can see just as many text-heavy tweets on screen with the new UI as with the old one because the UI itself wastes less screen real estate - and that's with the second-smallest, default font option. The same applies to tweets with heavy picture use: I can see a larger portion of a chopped-off tweet with the redesign than I can with the old desktop UI. With the smallest font size option, it's not even a contest and the redesign wins handily.