

A type-centric redesign of Twitter.com - ams1
http://www.vcarrer.com/2009/06/twitter-unofficial-redesign.html

======
zimbabwe
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
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
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.

------
rantfoil
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_

------
ramidarigaz
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
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?

------
aptimpropriety
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
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
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.

