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Radical Twitter Redesign – Thoughts?

on December 12, 2011 | Twitter | Comments (0)

Twitter redesigned their site last week and all users should now have access to the new twitter.com

The redesign is rather radical and I can tell it would have been a huge project for the Twitter development teams. People are often opposed to IT change, especially with mainstream websites – I am not, I work in the IT industry and I appreciate change is sometimes needed and welcomed, but must be done carefully.

Too much?

I look back on the new design versus the old, I am starting to think if Twitter has moved too far away from their simplistic (and minimalistic) heritage? Have they made too many changes in one go?

Problem: Appealing to a wider Internet Audience

I feel Twitter has always had one particular problem to overcome – making the service attractive and useable by a non tech savvy audience, and I’m not sure the new design is going to help resolve this problem.

Upon logging into Twitter the new ‘Home’ page just feels too busy. Maybe it is the sidebar has moving from the right hand side of the page to the left.

The @Connect tab is useful, splitting up your mentions and interactions so you can easily see different sorts of activity with your profile. The interactions tab was previously called the activity tab and there isn’t actually any functionality gain here, just a new layout.

Mobile Upgrade

The iPhone app update brings the mobile version of the site up to speed with the full site, whereas previously there were some functionality gaps between the two.

Business Pages Coming

Twitter has also released Business Pages (similar to Facebook pages), but I see this more competing with Google Plus and LinkedIn than Facebook.

Twitter have made a lot of changes in one go, have they done too much? Only time will tell.


David Correll : Editor and Founder of SocialMediaNews.com.au. I also run a Social Media Agency where I do consulting work and Social Media Management. Connect with me: Twitter | LinkedIn | Facebook or contact me here. Alternatively, you can send me an email at david@socialmedianews.com.au




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