5 ms·

A type-centric redesign of Twitter.com

20 points by ams1 17y ago

zimbabwe 17y ago
The screenshot looked really good. Running live, it's way too cluttered and there's not enough of a relation between relevant pieces of information. I strongly dislike the lefthand column, and the lack of contract with the righthand one. Finally, the "What are you doing?" box doesn't have nearly enough prominence. Type-centric means using size to emphasize relevance. When everything's the exact same size your design is flawed.
- spacedock 17y ago
  Agree re: lack of contract between left/right columns. The designer seems to assume that people want to read tweets first, then--if it's interesting--see who wrote it. But this doesn't make sense to me. I follow 100 or so people but they are not all equal, and in my mind I associate their tweets with a reputation based on my previous knowledge. Some of my follows for example only tweet banal day-to-day activities, while others are sources of interesting links and/or their interests have a greater amount of overlap with my own. Thus, I almost always scan the avatar/username first before deciding if their tweet is likely to be worth the read. Having to look in two separate places in order to carry out this process is very tiring on the eyes.
  - litewulf 17y ago
    I wish I could do something with some sort of like button (or even with the addition of the omnipresent up/down arrows) Even better, I wish there was some way to automatically separate "boring life-y bits" and "interesting hobbies" out. I care about the boring life-y bits from people I know but not from people I follow because they have done cool things professionally. But honestly the voting burden is too high to make it work I think. Also, I really wish things were like the 2ch/4chan model, where I could evaluate the quality of content on its own merits instead of on who said it. But that might just be too much.
- ams1 17y ago
  True, this is clearly based on a Brockmann-like grid. Though Brockmann emphasized the importance of headers set off and differentiated from the body text.
aptimpropriety 17y ago
I had a very similar reaction to the most recent facebook re-design - I felt that bottom line, I was able to view much less content/information at a given time. I never understood why facebook would want to do such a thing - to increase clicks, perhaps. (Note, I only skimmed the article)
- redorb 17y ago
  indeed this design makes me appreciate the current one a lot more. I'm sure there is a term for this 'not liking the new design even if its better' something to do with resistance to change.
  - mkuhn 17y ago
    Just a short summary: In Marketing and Strategic Management this effect is called the 9X effect. It stipulates, that you underestimate the power/usefulness of a new product 3 times and overestimate the old product 3 times as well. This means a new product has to be ten times better to be successful. As you mentioned, underlying to this whole thing is, that most people are change averse and therefore resisting it. Only around five percent of people truly like change (early adopters). All the others have to be forced to use something new.
ramidarigaz 17y ago
I like the look, but at the same time it feels a little awkward. I don't like the grey lines everywhere, and the top of the page looks, well, awful. On the upside, I like the look of the leftmost column a lot, and the three column layout works well. I like how the vertical space is highly emphasized. Also, I never realized how awesome italicized Georgia font looks. EDIT: Also, I think that a better color-palette would help.
jrockway 17y ago
I display the twitter timeline in my IRC client. In an 80x25 xterm, I can see about 15 tweets. Do you really need a picture of your friend every time he or she talks?
rantfoil 17y ago
This type-centric redesign fails to account for information architecture. What's the most important thing on the page? Probably the tweet and the picture. The left column with ragged right justified time and twitter client stamp draws far too much attention and is not important enough to warrant so much emphasis. The tweet itself seems almost accidental -- the main focus is on the photo itself. Also, remove the twitter logo because it's not needed? Really? wince

20 points by ams1 17y ago

The screenshot looked really good. Running live, it's way too cluttered and there's not enough of a relation between relevant pieces of information. I strongly dislike the lefthand column, and the lack of contract with the righthand one. Finally, the "What are you doing?" box doesn't have nearly enough prominence. Type-centric means using size to emphasize relevance. When everything's the exact same size your design is flawed.

spacedock 17y ago
Agree re: lack of contract between left/right columns. The designer seems to assume that people want to read tweets first, then--if it's interesting--see who wrote it. But this doesn't make sense to me. I follow 100 or so people but they are not all equal, and in my mind I associate their tweets with a reputation based on my previous knowledge. Some of my follows for example only tweet banal day-to-day activities, while others are sources of interesting links and/or their interests have a greater amount of overlap with my own. Thus, I almost always scan the avatar/username first before deciding if their tweet is likely to be worth the read. Having to look in two separate places in order to carry out this process is very tiring on the eyes.
- litewulf 17y ago
  I wish I could do something with some sort of like button (or even with the addition of the omnipresent up/down arrows) Even better, I wish there was some way to automatically separate "boring life-y bits" and "interesting hobbies" out. I care about the boring life-y bits from people I know but not from people I follow because they have done cool things professionally. But honestly the voting burden is too high to make it work I think. Also, I really wish things were like the 2ch/4chan model, where I could evaluate the quality of content on its own merits instead of on who said it. But that might just be too much.
ams1 17y ago
True, this is clearly based on a Brockmann-like grid. Though Brockmann emphasized the importance of headers set off and differentiated from the body text.

aptimpropriety 17y ago

I had a very similar reaction to the most recent facebook re-design - I felt that bottom line, I was able to view much less content/information at a given time. I never understood why facebook would want to do such a thing - to increase clicks, perhaps. (Note, I only skimmed the article)

redorb 17y ago
indeed this design makes me appreciate the current one a lot more. I'm sure there is a term for this 'not liking the new design even if its better' something to do with resistance to change.
- mkuhn 17y ago
  Just a short summary: In Marketing and Strategic Management this effect is called the 9X effect. It stipulates, that you underestimate the power/usefulness of a new product 3 times and overestimate the old product 3 times as well. This means a new product has to be ten times better to be successful. As you mentioned, underlying to this whole thing is, that most people are change averse and therefore resisting it. Only around five percent of people truly like change (early adopters). All the others have to be forced to use something new.

ramidarigaz 17y ago

I like the look, but at the same time it feels a little awkward. I don't like the grey lines everywhere, and the top of the page looks, well, awful. On the upside, I like the look of the leftmost column a lot, and the three column layout works well. I like how the vertical space is highly emphasized. Also, I never realized how awesome italicized Georgia font looks. EDIT: Also, I think that a better color-palette would help.

jrockway 17y ago

I display the twitter timeline in my IRC client. In an 80x25 xterm, I can see about 15 tweets. Do you really need a picture of your friend every time he or she talks?

rantfoil 17y ago

This type-centric redesign fails to account for information architecture. What's the most important thing on the page? Probably the tweet and the picture. The left column with ragged right justified time and twitter client stamp draws far too much attention and is not important enough to warrant so much emphasis. The tweet itself seems almost accidental -- the main focus is on the photo itself. Also, remove the twitter logo because it's not needed? Really? wince