After showing unexpected signs of growth in the previous quarter, Twitter is now looking to onboard fresh new users to its platform. Thus, the company has today decided to debut a complete redesign of its app across all of its platforms — be it the desktop, Android, or iOS.
The redesign is not a significant variation when compared to the existing functionality of the micro-blogging platform. It is only the icon design and placement, coupled with settings and typography, that has been tweaked with this update.
Speaking about this update, Grace Kim, VP of user research and design at Twitter in a statement says:
Today, with lots of feedback and ideas from you, we’re refreshing our product too and making it feel lighter, faster, and easier to use. We listened closely and kept what you love.
The iOS mobile app, which now resembles the Android app, and the newly introduced reply button will have to be some of the most prominent changes to the platform. The said changes will also be extended over to twitter.com, TweetDeck, and Twitter Lite. They’ll steadily be made available to all Twitter users across the globe, starting today. Users will have to update to app version 7.0 to get the newly redesigned interface.
As for the new interface, it will look awfully similar to the design aesthetics of the Android app, which includes only four navigation buttons — Home, Explore, Notification and Direct Messaging. The previous iOS app also included a Moments tab, the feature which is similar to Snapchat Stories but quite different at the same time. The Android app received this interface way back but new design changes (icons) still haven’t made it to the official build.
The profile, lists, moments, as well as the settings and privacy window have now all been clubbed under the profile option on the top left. Tapping on the same reveals a side navigation menu, making it simple to access the said options. The tweet button still remains at the top right, thus, iOS users will not have to adjust to the same — it would have been a drastic change. The links to articles within the Twitter app will no longer open via the in-app browser and will instead switch to Safari’s viewer.
Talking about the icon changes, Twitter has tweaked them to make them feel more quirky and intuitive for first-time visitors. And it does not come as much of a shock because the company has been mulling over the same for months. It had been planning to change the icons to make it simpler for new users (not the power ones) to understand and feel closer to the platform. And only a few minor changes have been introduced with this update.
While most of the icons such as Home, Explore, Retweet, Heart (which replaced like earlier last year), Notification and DMs are all almost the same, while the reply button has been updated. Instead of the back arrow which users confused being a previous page or delete button, Twitter has now brought in a known icon for the same — a speech bubble. This new icon will direct people to join the conversation and talk to their peers.
Over the past few months, Twitter has been working towards the moderation of user behavior on the platform. It has been debuting new tools and services to build upon their platform, while also eliminating the spread of hate speech and abuse. The company’s also playing catch to its competitors and has debuted support chatbots, which can push you to tweet as well. Twitter currently has about 328 million monthly active users, who’re coming to the platform to stream live content or see the U.S President Trump make a fool of himself.
