Insight

Twitter’s Visual Overhaul – Novelty Information Design Feature to Foster Creativity

[vc_row][vc_column width=”1/1″][vc_column_text]A rumour circulated across the internet a month ago that Twitter is testing a new redesign for its profile pages. Yesterday, David Bellona, designer at Twitter, officially outlined the changes on the Twitter blog . New web profile has now gone live for selected users, read – celebs, including John Legend, Zac Efron and of course First Lady Michelle Obama. Don’t worry, it’s rolling out for the rest of us mere mortals in the next few weeks. If you are impatient, you can open a new account and the redesign will be your default.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”1/1″][vc_column_text]So what’s new? In a nutshell, get ready to have the look of your Facebook profile on your Twitter very soon. Focus is on imagery with new cover photo and avatar positioning and resize, much similar to Facebook’s profile pages no? The background has been scrapped as well, which allows for tweets to pop up in a clean sleek interface. Remember your bio being the star of the show? Well, it’s not anymore.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”1/1″][vc_single_image image=”2890″ img_link_target=”_self” img_size=”full”][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”1/1″][vc_column_text]Apparently, Twitter will breathe new life into your most popular tweets, as they will appear larger. You can instantly spot which tweets did well. This is a clever feature I felt speaks in information design language. It takes data into account (number of retweets, favourites) and enlarges tweets based on that number. It’s unclear if David Bellona is the actual designer behind the overhaul but interestingly enough, he have shown infectious flair for infoviz in his final project for Information Visualisation Class of Nicholas Felton –  Phillumeny Visualization. Fascinating work.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”1/1″][vc_column_text]The new redesign will most likely impact and reshape the Twitter Ads space whilst challenging social media managers and content crafters to find creative ways to engage audiences. On the positive side, it will offer a snapshot insight of best performing content quickly. Still, most of the content on Twitter is text-centric rather than image-centric and that means larger fonts, nothing more. However, this might bring value to newsworthy tweets in terms of pinpointing what’s relevant to the broad masses.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”1/1″][vc_column_text]It’s obvious this overhaul raises a lot of questions. Will this encourage behaviour change in users? Will we all start tweeting image focused content? Or is this a complete decay of the 144 character magic? Many users have shown their disagreement with Twitter’s decision, saying the platform will completely lose its simplicity, which is the single most loved element of the platform in my opinion. Will the same redesign treatment roll out to the news feed? According to comScore data, 87% of Twitter activity in the US comes from mobile, so how feasible is for the social media giant to redesign web profiles without applying the same to mobile? Will this attract new users to Twitter or will it push the loyal user base away?

Have a peek at what’s coming and share your thoughts in the comments below or tweet us @infor8![/vc_column_text][vc_row_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/6″][vc_tweetmeme type=”horizontal”][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/6″][vc_facebook type=”standard”][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/6″][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/6″][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/6″][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/6″][/vc_column_inner][/vc_row_inner][/vc_column][/vc_row]