

Web designer from Argentina realigns new Twitter.  - armandososa
http://www.rodrigogalindez.com/archivos/realigning-the-new-twitter/

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alextgordon
Not a fan of this "realignment". In an effort to stick to a grid, the spacing
has become all uneven.

Here: <http://www.fileability.net/snaps/twitteruneven.png>

Same colored arrows point to spaces that _should_ have the same size, because
they represent the same thing.

The problem with grids is that they're a blunt instrument. You still need to
use common sense. There's no conceivable reason why the "Home" button in the
top bar should align to the second panel. That would seem to imply that the
Home button does something to the second panel, when in fact it controls both.

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weixiyen
1) Numbers should not be moved to the right on the titles (ie follow 87)

2) He changed the background color lighter to show more contrast on the blur,
even though bg colors are customizable in twitter, thus creating an unfair
comparison.

3) Top black bar items not aligning with the grid may have been intentional.
It's not part of the layout but intended to be a separate object that is part
of the view port. I'm sure it was intended to seem like the bar was an
extension of the browser, not part of the web site. In this way, it does not
distract from reading.

4) His contrast with background colors on the "tweet box" area, the feed, and
the right side was done poorly, completely breaking the concept of main vs sub
content on left and right. The original background colors are much better in
clearly segregating left from right, and devaluing content on the right.

Designers forget (esp those with print backgrounds), UX is not simply about
making things look pretty, but also being able to trigger an emotional
response and create a connection with the end user.

Ironically, Doug Bowman's latest post on StopDesign talks about the Uncanny
Valley. This theory applies here too. Rodrigo's design looks way too much like
a static blog, and makes me feel uncomfortable.

Although aesthetically pleasing at first sight, this guy still has a lot to
learn from Doug Bowman.

His design honestly looks like a Wordpress Blog theme, not Twitter.

~~~
gommm
Why shouldn't numbers be moved to the right of titles? As a non-designer, I
find it nicer to see at a glance what is happening?

That said I agree with the rest of your critique...

~~~
weixiyen
takes longer to scan. Also the inconsistency, notice on the right margin he
uses numbers to represent data, then later uses it as a control link to filter
/ edit data. It should only be the latter.

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ramanujam
Using a 1080px grid is a big no! I assume there would be a considerable
percentage of twitter web users with a 1024x screen resolution. On twitter's
scale, even a small percentage(say 5%) would run into millions and showing
them the horizontal bar is definitely not a good idea.

~~~
ugh
Some might also not use the full width of their screen. Is there any good data
on this?

My browser window is nearly always about 700px wide – that’s half of my
screen. Two-finger scrolling makes vertical scrollbars just as easy to use as
horizontal scrollbars but 1000px wide designs are not optimized for 700px wide
windows [+].

I certainly don‘t want websites to start using 700px wide layouts. I would,
however, love to see more websites that change their layouts depending on the
width of the browser. Twitter could drop one column if needed. Many browsers
already make such changes easy and it is just as easy to force the common
denominator layout on older browsers. That would be completely in line with
progressive enhancement.

[+] To all the web designers out there: I can understand that it is not
exactly your priority to make it easy for someone who like 700px wide browser
windows to use the website you are designing. But could you please at least
test whether everything still works even when the browser window is that
narrow? I really should always be able to scroll to any button and backgrounds
shouldn’t disappear.

~~~
uptown
Seriously? 700px? I realize there's a class of users that doesn't browse full-
screen, and that a site with a broad an audience as Twitter is bound to
encounter every variety of screen resolutions, but there comes a point where
if a user elects to operate their system in a non-standard configuration they
can't expect the designer to accommodate those requirements when there's
already two solutions available to accommodate this choice: scrollbars and the
zoom-out feature available in every browser.

While developing alternative display modes for non-standard resolutions is
certainly possible, it unquestionably increases the time and expense of
design, development and testing for what is arguably a negligible gains in
terms of the percentage of users you're serving.

~~~
ugh
I understand that it is additional work and I really don't want to be
demanding. I’m happy when a website merely works. (I’m not sure how non-
standard windows not spanning the entire width of the screen are. That seems
like the default behavior of any browser window on the Mac. I would love to
see data.)

It‘s just that many, many websites are being optimized for low resolutions on
mobile devices anyway. It would be great if that work could be repurposed for
the desktop.

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armandososa
I think the problem here is the disconnection. According to CRAP principles
(contrast, repetition/rythm, alignment, proximity) related items should be in
proximity with each other.

IMHO Rodrigo's design does better on contrast & rythm but there's a
disconnection between related elements which can cause confusion. If I had to
solve that I should try using a light background to enclose items that belong
one with another.

I think that, regardless of the results I find this kind of exercise very
useful. It's very hard for someone living in Argentina (or anywhere outside SF
or NY) to be commissioned with a work of this caliber, so it's very ratifying
to think "Could I do it better?" even if the answer is "No, I can't"

On a related note, is good to see Bowman work again after disappearing that
many years inside Google.

------
treyp
if you like this, this guy's style reminds me a lot of Khoi Vinh's, who also
has done a famous realignment mockup:
<http://www.subtraction.com/2009/09/15/our-craigslist>

