uber.la

Ah the revolution has begun. Twitter is getting off their heels and coming to the table with a new feature set in the form of a UI upgrade. And the "social" media (Mashable claims BREAKING) is all over it. Well, let's have a quick looksee. [I have to think smartman Cashmore is amused to be poking the BREAKING stick at Twitter. Is it a foreshadowing? Does Pete like the changes? Does Pete think Twitter BROKE Twitter? Lionsandtigersandbearsohmy!]

I did notice today, as I was going about my tweeting business, I could not get any one's "Follows" page to come up. I just thought it was TwitterFail wonkiness. And low and behold it WAS TwitterFail wonkiness, but with a purpose this time. To launch a new UI for the Followers and Friends pages. All hail the effort.

I did take a moment to visit Mr. Cashmore's BREAKING NEWS and post this comment regarding the BIG NEWS.

And how about letting us decide how many follower(ees) to show per page? Managing tweeps by the handful (20 per page) is dumb and hard. This is an improvement. But I'd settle for less fail whale and more users per page, thank you very much.

So there, even before I've begun I have exposed my hand. I am not sooooo happy with the changes. While they are nice, and many will herald "revolutionary" and "amazing," I am not so convinced that just giving us the ability to affect more followers per page wouldn't have been a better UPGRADE. But enough about my gripes.

So here's a look at how the NEW TWITTER handles porn spam and bad advertising agencies.

So there's the picture of the pretty girl, super00009 and I can see from the info on the new page that she has been blocked. And if I click on the gear I get several drop-down options. I can @ her, DM her, Follow her or Unblock her. Okay, already I see a problem. So the other iconographic button is a PLUS sign and a silhouette. I think that would be FOLLOW. And the "Unblock?" that would probably be Unblock. SO… Why are they repeated again in the drop down? UX 101, you do not need to have repetitive controls in multiple places. Put them in the menu, or as buttons, but not both. In fact, TWITTER UX GURU, How about this

1. BLOCK/UNBLOCK Toggle button.

2. FOLLOW/UNFOLLOW toggle button and

3. GEAR for MORE options.

Or, you have plenty of white space there. If you're gonna do buttons, then do buttons. So

3. @ button for sending a message "about" someone

4. DM button for sending a direct message

5. RT button [uh, herrro, Twitter? Anyone in there? Where's the RT functionality? Okay, I admit I get irritated by bad design. Mainly when I'm forced to use it over and over and over again.]

6. (I'm giving you this one for FREE) a "!" Report button that alerts the Twitter police that super00009 is a pornster using Twitter for soliciting my attention and perhaps money. [I am immune to her charms, btw.]

There, see how easy that was? No muss no fuss, no need for a generic pull-down gear button. And each action takes only ONE CLICK. [Don't you guys have any design people on staff to come up with something a bit more original?]

Perhaps I am being harsh again. But, Twitter is used by millions. Twitter is a force. Don't you think they could get some SERIOUS help on this UX/UI thing?

Okay, so let's get to the overall picture again. The page change IS pretty dramatic.

Here is the expanded view:

Okay, wait… Where did the blocked "unblock?" thing go? And the ADD button?

Alright I figured it out.

Here's a deeper picture of that same "expanded page."

So, let's see what's happened here.

If you are following someone the Follow Button is gone. [This is why a toggled FOLLOW/UNFOLLOW would work beautifully.]

But wait, something is different… Oh, I see. This is the FOLLOWERS page, and these are folks who may or may not be following me. The top page is the FOLLOWING page, so I am already following those folks. So now the UX/UI person created a big UI fail: Control buttons appearing and disappearing. Why not make the set of controls the same for every page. See how nicely  Tweetdeck has a cluster of controls to manage the tweetstream functionality.

But we can't really just copy Tweetdeck now can we? But at least the UX/UI team at Twitter should frackin LOOK AT TWEETDECK as an example. They would've seen the RT button and somebody would'a, could'a, should'a said, "Holy cow Bob, we forgot ReTweet. We forgot to put in RT as a function. Oh damn, you've already pushed it live. Oh well."

So let's look at the LIST version of the FOLLOWING page.

Boy, it's apparent to me more than ever, and I'd have said to the UX/UI guy, "Holy Cow Bob, those are damn big buttons! Do you think the buttons' need to be so darned BIG?"

So the LIST view would be a great place for the LIST button to be a pulldown and have something like

View By List
- 20 per page (default)
- 50 per page (efficient)
- 100 per page (uber user)
- 1,000,000 per page (mr. demi moore only)

But perhaps that would put too big a load on the servers. How about LIST w/o pictures or buttons? Say a TEXT view? Now that would be fast and save us some extra clicks as well. So just when they were at a point where they could've made a really dramatic improvement in User Experience, they pulled back and went with User Interface alone.

So the buttons don't need to be nearly that big, unless the new Twitter demographic is trending towards octogenarians. And if your gonna do buttons then do buttons, but don't mix buttons with text links with pulldowns. It's irritating. [And I was happy before I started writing this review. I guess I will get over it pretty quick to, what with all this venting.]

If you can't say something nice… Okay, here's the WIN behind the NEW IMPROVED TWITTER: In the EXPANDED view I can see the person's last tweet. AND, I get that same EXPANDED or LIST view for everyone I check out. So while I'm not so big on the execution of the new feature set at least it is something. But that dang super00009 is still there. And even after I block her, she is still there haunting me. [Kinda like the real bad advertising agency that follows her every where she goes.]

And the BLOCK screen has much to be desired.

So there she is, another of super00009's aliases, mtraveKittyi! Why the grave concern with me BLOCKING her? Just make BLOCKING with the same REAL WORLD consequences as UNFOLLOWING. Imagine an UNFOLLOW screen saying:

Are you sure you want to unfollow super00009?
- You're gonna miss all super00009's funny/sexy/cute tweets and calls for your attention
- You won't show up in super00009's updates any more [or be counted as one of her pawns!!!]
- super00009 won't broadcast her trash into your tweepstream any more

I would like a way to let Twitter know that I have unfollowed super00009 with a prejudice and believe that she is probably not a 20 yo sex kitten who wants my children.

So there you have it. My somewhat irritated take on the NEW IMPROVED TWITTER.

RATING: 6 out of 10. [Needs improvement.]

@jmacofearth
permalink: http://bit.ly/new-twitter

You may prefer my alternatively toned POSITIVE REVIEW HERE: New Twitter Features: Reviewing from the Positive Side of the Brain

Question: Does it surprise anyone that only 10% of Twitter's server traffic is due to Twitter.com interactions? Why? Because everyone else is using an APP to manage what Twitter can't. If Twitter.com is the 10% solution, then why do we need Twitter.com at all? Give me TWAVE.com or TWITTEROPEN.ORG and I will port my data and settings without shedding a tear for Biz or EV or the Fail Whale Follies.

Tags: 10% solution, biz stone, blocking, breaking twitter, enhanced twitter, expanded view, fail whale, fail whale follies, follow, follow button, list view, mashable, new improved, new improved twitter, opentwitter, RT button, text view, the new twitter, tools, twave, tweetdeck, tweetopen, twitter, twitter porn, twitter ui, twitter upgrade, twitter ux, twitterfail, twitteropen, unblocking, unfollow, useability, view by list