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It's amazing to me that people find twitter difficult to read... I mean it's not perfect but it's not an ovaltine decoder ring, either. Just ... Scroll ... Do

It's amazing to me that people find twitter difficult to read... I mean it's not perfect but it's not an ovaltine decoder ring, either. Just ... Scroll ... Down ... Click where it says "read more" or "show more replies" You're human; THE most adaptable creature known. Adapt! I'm not saying that twitter UX is perfect, or even good. I AM saying that it is usable.

kaszanka 6y ago
I think building a more usable alternative (or in this case using an existing one) is a better idea than adapting to Twitter's horrendous "UX".
- naikrovek 6y ago
  WHY NOT BOTH?!
rconti 6y ago
It's very unintuitive that when you open a Thread, the "back" arrow means "back to something else" and you have to scroll up above "line 0" to see the context of the thing being replied to. I forget this every single time I open a tweet thread and try to figure out the context. Once you scroll up, it sort of makes sense -- each tweet with a line connecting user icons but then suddenly the expanded tweet thread has the main tweet in a larger font, then the "retweet/like" controls below it, THEN another line of smaller-font tweets that comprise the thread. Then you get some limited number and have to click "more" for more. The monochrome of it all reminds me of when GMail got rid of the very helpful colors-for-threads and went to grey on grey on grey. It's not visually apparent at all.
- naikrovek 6y ago
  I am not saying it is intuitive. I'm saying it's usable. I'm saying that complaining about it makes people look like they think they're royalty who need everything just so or their whole day is ruined... And now they can't tell the butler to take Poopsie for a walk because they're so shaken by the experience.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - gspr 6y ago
    I usable all we can expect from one of the world's most popular websites?
xtracto 6y ago
Twitter was designed to have 280 characters max per message. This means that for this kind of long format text, the amount of Signal-to-Noise ratio of having a large number of "tweets" is pretty low. The amount of stuff your brain has to filter in the form of user name, user tweet handle, additional tagged handlers, UI menus, UI buttons for replying, retweeting, liking, etc on every single code snippet makes your brain work way more than it should to read a page of text. Just imagine if I had written this exact text in 3 separate HackerNews comments, and prepended each with a 1/ 2/ 3/ text, in addition to all the message UI, it would have been more difficult to read than a simple piece of text.
- naikrovek 6y ago
  You all are perfect delicate flowers that need things to be just right in order to use them, then? Is that what you're saying? Because that's what I'm getting from you.
  - NikolaNovak 6y ago
    I mean,yes? :-) If I'm going to use something, it should be intuitive and usable. It should be fit for its purpose, especially with a myriad of single and multi purpose tools available to all. This doesn't feel like something I should justify too hard :-) Twitter is not a necessity of life. I don't have to use it. They want me to use it and if so they can/should make it usable. Its paradigm and user interface don't work for me personally (and particularly when people try to fit an article into something explicitly designed for a single sentence - it feels like a misuse of a tool,like hammering a screw) so I don't use it. And that's ok! I don't feel they are morally obligated to make it usable by me. It's a private platform and they can do as they please. But my wife is a store manager and taught me that "feedback is a gift" - if a customer will leave the store and never come back,she'd rather know why, rather then remain ignorant. She may or may not choose to address it but being aware and informed is better than being ignorant of the reasons. So at the end of it, rather than down vote, let me ask what is the actual crux of your argument? People shouldn't be discriminate? They should use optional things they dislike? They shouldn't share their preferences and feedback? Twitter is a great tool for long format essays? Or something we all may be missing?
mkl 6y ago
> Just ... Scroll ... Down ... Click where it says "read more" or "show more replies" That doesn't work. Neither "read more" nor "show more replies" appears on the page [1]. Nor does "show replies", which turns out to be what you actually need to click once you go to a place it appears. In fact, there's no indication that there even are more replies, or that "replies" are actually the main content. To see the content, it turns out you need to click on the original "1/" tweet, which takes you to what looks like a new page (but doesn't change the URL, so you can't link to it). It is not usable in any real sense. I only spent the time to solve the puzzle as I was trying to make sense of your comment. [1] https://imgur.com/a/BL9M74m https://imgur.com/a/BL9M74m (the centre column is shown in full, and there's nothing down further)
- naikrovek 6y ago
  > It is not usable in any real sense. Absolutely untrue. I can use it. Again, (for about the 4th time) I'm not saying it's good, I'm saying it's usable. I want everyone who is disagreeing with me to spend a SINGLE EFFING DAY with a para- or quadrapalegic and then tell me that TWITTER is unusable. What I'm trying to say is that "you have no idea what unusable really means." You people are spoiled rotten and you not only don't know it, you actively object to anyone who says otherwise. This site is filled with overinflated 20-somethings that think they know everything important and that their opinion actually has value.
  - jgwil2 6y ago
    So because there are people in wheelchairs nobody can complain about a suboptimal user experience on a popular website with hundreds of engineers making copious amounts of money?
    - naikrovek 6y ago
      > So because there are people in wheelchairs nobody can complain about a suboptimal user experience on a popular website with hundreds of engineers making copious amounts of money? That's not what I'm saying. Not even close. However, if you knew even a small number of the usability issues that certain people are forced to put up with every day of their lives, you'd cease viewing twitter UX as a problem worth even acknowledging.
egypturnash 6y ago
Dude I use Twitter regularly and this thread was super annoying, it just showed me two of the actual tweets that are supposed to be interesting here even after I clicked on “more”.
- naikrovek 6y ago
  Dude I use twitter regularly and I navigated the thread easily.

kaszanka 6y ago

I think building a more usable alternative (or in this case using an existing one) is a better idea than adapting to Twitter's horrendous "UX".

naikrovek 6y ago
WHY NOT BOTH?!

rconti 6y ago

It's very unintuitive that when you open a Thread, the "back" arrow means "back to something else" and you have to scroll up above "line 0" to see the context of the thing being replied to. I forget this every single time I open a tweet thread and try to figure out the context. Once you scroll up, it sort of makes sense -- each tweet with a line connecting user icons but then suddenly the expanded tweet thread has the main tweet in a larger font, then the "retweet/like" controls below it, THEN another line of smaller-font tweets that comprise the thread. Then you get some limited number and have to click "more" for more. The monochrome of it all reminds me of when GMail got rid of the very helpful colors-for-threads and went to grey on grey on grey. It's not visually apparent at all.

naikrovek 6y ago
I am not saying it is intuitive. I'm saying it's usable. I'm saying that complaining about it makes people look like they think they're royalty who need everything just so or their whole day is ruined... And now they can't tell the butler to take Poopsie for a walk because they're so shaken by the experience.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- gspr 6y ago
  I usable all we can expect from one of the world's most popular websites?

xtracto 6y ago

Twitter was designed to have 280 characters max per message. This means that for this kind of long format text, the amount of Signal-to-Noise ratio of having a large number of "tweets" is pretty low. The amount of stuff your brain has to filter in the form of user name, user tweet handle, additional tagged handlers, UI menus, UI buttons for replying, retweeting, liking, etc on every single code snippet makes your brain work way more than it should to read a page of text. Just imagine if I had written this exact text in 3 separate HackerNews comments, and prepended each with a 1/ 2/ 3/ text, in addition to all the message UI, it would have been more difficult to read than a simple piece of text.

naikrovek 6y ago
You all are perfect delicate flowers that need things to be just right in order to use them, then? Is that what you're saying? Because that's what I'm getting from you.
- NikolaNovak 6y ago
  I mean,yes? :-) If I'm going to use something, it should be intuitive and usable. It should be fit for its purpose, especially with a myriad of single and multi purpose tools available to all. This doesn't feel like something I should justify too hard :-) Twitter is not a necessity of life. I don't have to use it. They want me to use it and if so they can/should make it usable. Its paradigm and user interface don't work for me personally (and particularly when people try to fit an article into something explicitly designed for a single sentence - it feels like a misuse of a tool,like hammering a screw) so I don't use it. And that's ok! I don't feel they are morally obligated to make it usable by me. It's a private platform and they can do as they please. But my wife is a store manager and taught me that "feedback is a gift" - if a customer will leave the store and never come back,she'd rather know why, rather then remain ignorant. She may or may not choose to address it but being aware and informed is better than being ignorant of the reasons. So at the end of it, rather than down vote, let me ask what is the actual crux of your argument? People shouldn't be discriminate? They should use optional things they dislike? They shouldn't share their preferences and feedback? Twitter is a great tool for long format essays? Or something we all may be missing?

mkl 6y ago

> Just ... Scroll ... Down ... Click where it says "read more" or "show more replies" That doesn't work. Neither "read more" nor "show more replies" appears on the page [1]. Nor does "show replies", which turns out to be what you actually need to click once you go to a place it appears. In fact, there's no indication that there even are more replies, or that "replies" are actually the main content. To see the content, it turns out you need to click on the original "1/" tweet, which takes you to what looks like a new page (but doesn't change the URL, so you can't link to it). It is not usable in any real sense. I only spent the time to solve the puzzle as I was trying to make sense of your comment. [1] https://imgur.com/a/BL9M74m https://imgur.com/a/BL9M74m (the centre column is shown in full, and there's nothing down further)

naikrovek 6y ago
> It is not usable in any real sense. Absolutely untrue. I can use it. Again, (for about the 4th time) I'm not saying it's good, I'm saying it's usable. I want everyone who is disagreeing with me to spend a SINGLE EFFING DAY with a para- or quadrapalegic and then tell me that TWITTER is unusable. What I'm trying to say is that "you have no idea what unusable really means." You people are spoiled rotten and you not only don't know it, you actively object to anyone who says otherwise. This site is filled with overinflated 20-somethings that think they know everything important and that their opinion actually has value.
- jgwil2 6y ago
  So because there are people in wheelchairs nobody can complain about a suboptimal user experience on a popular website with hundreds of engineers making copious amounts of money?
  - naikrovek 6y ago
    > So because there are people in wheelchairs nobody can complain about a suboptimal user experience on a popular website with hundreds of engineers making copious amounts of money? That's not what I'm saying. Not even close. However, if you knew even a small number of the usability issues that certain people are forced to put up with every day of their lives, you'd cease viewing twitter UX as a problem worth even acknowledging.

egypturnash 6y ago

Dude I use Twitter regularly and this thread was super annoying, it just showed me two of the actual tweets that are supposed to be interesting here even after I clicked on “more”.

naikrovek 6y ago
Dude I use twitter regularly and I navigated the thread easily.