Last year, US-based micro-blogging firm; Twitter Inc. got heat from its users when it changed its algorithm that orders the tweets users see. Users tweeted their dismay when the company rolled out its Moments feature, and when it got rid of its star icon signifying a favorite tweet, in favor of a heart icon, similar to Facebook’s like button.
In another case, the San Francisco company on Thursday rolled out a new look; USER INTERFACE (UI) for its Web, Mobile Apps, Twitter Lite, and Tweetdeck that got twitter users hating. Much like some previous changes the company has made to its short-messaging service, it’s still not going over so well with the Twitterati.
However, Twitter in its defense, said in its official web blog – “the new design emphasizes simplicity, making it faster and easier to use, with bolder headlines and more intuitive icons.” It also changed users’ profile images from square-shaped to round.
Immediately after the roll out of the update, Tweeps responded by tweeting jokes and memes critical of the changes.
According to online reports, there were over 30,000 tweets about the new user interface, within hours of the change, the vast majority of them either complaining about the new look or mocking it. “A popular image was a suddenly round SpongeBob SquarePants”.
Welcome to the new #TwitterUI pic.twitter.com/3TW1ZilrT0
— Alexander Polinsky (@Alex_Polinsky) June 15, 2017
2017. Twitter redesign. pic.twitter.com/QNU1zgkioX
— Marcos Besteiro (@MarcosBL) June 15, 2017
WTF is this Twitter update??
— Amy McCann? (@AmyMccann16) June 16, 2017
Literally everything about the twitter redesign just makes it uglier
— Woko Haram (@Wokieleaksalt) June 15, 2017
OK, sure @Twitter, I see how an ugly fucking redesign would be worth more effort than any sort of real attempt to curtail harassment
— Lauren Duca (@laurenduca) June 15, 2017
New Twitter UI is awful. Can we roll back the chain @jack? Talk to @VitalikButerin if you need an advisor with experience on these matters.
— mikeinspace (@mikeinspace) June 16, 2017
holy shit.. what happened to @twitter!? someone hacked the UI / UX and it now looks horribly NAF !? pic.twitter.com/GMUCMYkzJB
— Dez Blanchfield (@dez_blanchfield) June 16, 2017
The redesign is Twitter’s latest attempt to freshen the messaging service, which has struggled to attract new users at the same pace as other social media platforms. Twitter revenue growth has stalled for years, and the company has cut costs and shuffled executives while still never posting a quarter of profit.
