Twitter has been having a problem with user growth, mostly due to its slow progress on reducing abuse on its platform, but also because it has a history of making bad design decisions that make it harder to navigate and communicate, such as fiddling with its reverse-chronological feed. Quality of life improvements such as rich content in retweets only recently made an appearance, presumably because Twitter has been working on something bigger.
For the past few months, devoted users of the microblogging platform have been testing a significant redesign of Twitter.com, and today the company has started rolling it out to everyone else. There’s no edit feature in sight, but this is the biggest change to the look and feel of the website in almost seven years, making it much more consistent with the experience found on mobile devices.
The changes are as follows, according to Twitter
More of What’s Happening: “We’ve brought over Explore to bring you the same great content found in our apps; expect more live video and local moments personalized for wherever you are in the world. Get context with profile information within conversations and check out your Top Trends in any view so you never miss what’s happening.”
Easy access to your favorite features: “Bookmarks, Lists, and your Profile are right up front and have their own spot on the side navigation, making it easier and faster to jump between different tabs.”
Direct messages all in one place: “Direct Messages have been expanded so you can see your conversations and send messages all from the same view. Now there’s less hassle switching between screens to send a message.”
Login, logout struggle no more: “Whether you have one profile or a few, now you’re also able to switch between accounts faster, directly from the side navigation; your stan, foodie and cat meme accounts thank you.”
Make Twitter yours: “The love is real for dark mode themes Dim and Lights Out. You’ve asked for even more ways to personalize Twitter so we’re bringing you different themes and color options, along with two options for dark mode.”
https://twitter.com/Twitter/status/1150812293124546561
It’s worth noting that once you get the new Twitter experience, there is no way to roll back to the old one. The good news is that since it’s a progressive web app, the company can make quick retouches where necessary.
