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Why Twitter 2.0's UI sucks

No, this has fuck all do to with the HIG. It has to do with using the goddamned thing.

Also, let's be clear, there are parts of Twitter I like. Page up/Page down. Tweetie is goddamned annoying about keyboards. It's like they don't exist for it and everyone lives in this stupid assed mouse only world except for typing the tweet.

No, the reason I hate the Twitter UI, (CRAIG HOCKENBERRY, I HAVE MONEY FOR A REVAMPED TWITTERIFFIC! SAVE ME OBI-CHOCK, YOU'RE MY ONLY HOPE!) is because it fucking fails at what it cannot afford to: making the application usable. First, whomever did the UI review for this needs to be poked in the fucking eyes. I'm serious. Not in a way that causes blindness or even temporary damage. But they need to have their vision temporarily impaired, and then try to use their fucking clever UI. Like the window control widgets. Let's compare. Tweetie:

Twitter:

The new widgets are smaller. Smaller is harder to hit. That's a fact, and it's one that Loren Brichter is, I hope, aware of. (Or maybe not. What's worse, ignorance or not caring?) Even worse, they're hard to see. The contrast between them and the surrounding area is crap. So you have barely not-black buttons that are small, on a not-black background. It's not like they get better when you hover over them:

If they at least popped out when you hovered over them, that would be a help. See, here's the thing: Making things hard to see not only tortures the customers who have decent/normal vision, but if you have bad vision, even corrected? This shit is unusable. The reason for making things like window widgets stand out from the background isn't based on twee theory. It's a requirement if you want to make your application usable across the entire range of sighted customers. This "oooh, black is so cooool, we'll make everything like that" crapola is just that. Making people have to work hard just to see shit isn't cool, it's stupid. But we aren't done.

Let's take a look at the differences in the kinds of tweets. First, Tweetie:

the difference is clear. Now, it's not perfect. For example, people who are colorblind, (which I am not) might have issues with this, so allowing the customer to change the background color should be an option. It's not, and that kind of sucks. But it is still at least a solid attempt. I like that, because if I'm looking for @-mentions, i can zoom up and down the list, and they jump out at me. Now, Twitter:

Same problem. Almost no difference, so you lose the discoverability of Tweetie. Not a HIG issue. (Well, to be honest, I've not read the HIG in years. So fuck if I know what it thinks, nor do I particularly care.) So now, my ability to easily find an @mention without having to change viewing modes is fucking dead. Thanks guys. Thanks for making me have to do more work for the same results. Also, the fonts, while not smaller in Twitter, don't stand out as well from the background as they do in Tweetie. But I think we've established that the chances of any thought, whatsoever given to people without perfect eyesight are pretty much zero. We're also not done. What about notifying me about Tweets in accounts? Tweetie:

That's awesome. It's clear. Light blue dots, nice big ones on a black background. Contrast fucking win. In this case, color doesn't matter. Look, sans color:

That's a good notification system. Also, the positioning. While there's no guideline, it's something that a Tweetie user will quickly realize has meaning. The horizontal position of a dot in an inactive account tells you what kind of tweets are unread. Simple, clear, and ratfucked in Twitter:

Once again, shit is small, and harder to see. Let's see what happens sans color:

Well holy fuck, they don't get any worse. Amazing. But they're still smaller, and the orientation changed. You get no additional functionality from this, in fact, it makes it harder for existing Tweetie users, but I guess the day the did that was "Everything must be vertical" day. That shit is right up there with all the "IT MUST BE DIFFERENT" bullshit Microsoft did in Vista. Fucking w00t.

We're still not done. What about when you see a tweet from someone you aren't following, and you decide you want to follow them. Well, in Tweetie, this was well laid out:

Everything you need right there. Easy to find, all close to each other. Simple. The gear icon is the Mac OS X "Hey, settings and shit live here" button. Oooh, what happens when I click. Since it's right there with everything else, discoverability is high. Now, Twitter:

Why is that image so big? Because instead of keeping a logical, nicely arranged design, they put the fucking follow button AT THE BOTTOM OF THE WINDOW. WHY? What possible functional/usable improvement does this bring? If you wanted a more explicit follow button, why put it a million fucking miles away? I actually missed this, because it was so out of my range of vision. It's something that could be good (make following easier) implemented in a crappy way (completely away from everything else that applies.) Yes, that is the size I use Tweetie, and used Twitter at. That's my normal environment. Tweetie works the same regardless of window size. Twitter? Yeah, fail.

There's other stuff, but I'm done at this point. Again, this isn't about HIG purity, it's about vision, seeing and functionality. I don't mind the iOS influence, I mind that the fucking application is harder to use and that things I need to easily see are now hard to see. It's just a shit UI on levels that UIs should be shit on. And no, I don't give a fuck that it's free. Free is not cheap enough to deal with this crap. Page up/Page down is not enough. Nothing is enough to put up with such a thoughtless UI.

Categories: Mac Matters

Posted by John C. Welch at 11:05 | Permalink

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No, this has fuck all do to with the HIG. It has to do with using the goddamned thing. \n\nAlso, let's be clear, there are parts of Twitter I like. Page up/Page down. Tweetie is goddamned annoying about keyboards. It's like they don't exist for it and everyone lives in this stupid assed mouse only world except for typing the tweet.\n\nNo, the reason I hate the Twitter UI, (CRAIG HOCKENBERRY, I HAVE MONEY FOR A REVAMPED TWITTERIFFIC! SAVE ME OBI-CHOCK, YOU'RE MY ONLY HOPE!) is because it fucking fails at what it cannot afford to: making the application usable. First, whomever did the UI review for this needs to be poked in the fucking eyes. I'm serious. Not in a way that causes blindness or even temporary damage. But they need to have their vision temporarily impaired, and then try to use their fucking clever UI. Like the window control widgets. Let's compare. Tweetie:\n\n $\"\"$ \n\nTwitter:\n\n $\"\"$ \n\nThe new widgets are smaller. Smaller is harder to hit. That's a fact, and it's one that Loren Brichter is, I hope, aware of. (Or maybe not. What's worse, ignorance or not caring?) Even worse, they're hard to see. The contrast between them and the surrounding area is crap. So you have barely not-black buttons that are small, on a not-black background. It's not like they get better when you hover over them:\n\n $\"\"$ \n\nIf they at least popped out when you hovered over them, that would be a help. See, here's the thing: Making things hard to see not only tortures the customers who have decent/normal vision, but if you have bad vision, even corrected? This shit is unusable. The reason for making things like window widgets stand out from the background isn't based on twee theory. It's a requirement if you want to make your application usable across the entire range of sighted customers. This \"oooh, black is so cooool, we'll make everything like that\" crapola is just that. Making people have to work hard just to see shit isn't cool, it's stupid. But we aren't done.\n\nLet's take a look at the differences in the kinds of tweets. First, Tweetie:\n\n $\"\"$ \n\nthe difference is clear. Now, it's not perfect. For example, people who are colorblind, (which I am not) might have issues with this, so allowing the customer to change the background color should be an option. It's not, and that kind of sucks. But it is still at least a solid attempt. I like that, because if I'm looking for @-mentions, i can zoom up and down the list, and they jump out at me. Now, Twitter:\n\n $\"\"$ \n\nSame problem. Almost no difference, so you lose the discoverability of Tweetie. Not a HIG issue. (Well, to be honest, I've not read the HIG in years. So fuck if I know what it thinks, nor do I particularly care.) So now, my ability to easily find an @mention without having to change viewing modes is fucking dead. Thanks guys. Thanks for making me have to do more work for the same results. Also, the fonts, while not smaller in Twitter, don't stand out as well from the background as they do in Tweetie. But I think we've established that the chances of any thought, whatsoever given to people without perfect eyesight are pretty much zero. We're also not done. What about notifying me about Tweets in accounts? Tweetie:\n\n $\"\"$ \n\nThat's awesome. It's clear. Light blue dots, nice big ones on a black background. Contrast fucking win. In this case, color doesn't matter. Look, sans color:\n\n $\"\"$ \n\nThat's a good notification system. Also, the positioning. While there's no guideline, it's something that a Tweetie user will quickly realize has meaning. The horizontal position of a dot in an inactive account tells you what kind of tweets are unread. Simple, clear, and ratfucked in Twitter:\n\n $\"\"$ \n\nOnce again, shit is small, and harder to see. Let's see what happens sans color:\n\n $\"\"$ \n\nWell holy fuck, they don't get any worse. Amazing. But they're still smaller, and the orientation changed. You get no additional functionality from this, in fact, it makes it harder for existing Tweetie users, but I guess the day the did that was \"Everything must be vertical\" day. That shit is right up there with all the \"IT MUST BE DIFFERENT\" bullshit Microsoft did in Vista. Fucking w00t.\n\nWe're still not done. What about when you see a tweet from someone you aren't following, and you decide you want to follow them. Well, in Tweetie, this was well laid out:\n\n $\"\"$ \n\nEverything you need right there. Easy to find, all close to each other. Simple. The gear icon is the Mac OS X \"Hey, settings and shit live here\" button. Oooh, what happens when I click. Since it's right there with everything else, discoverability is high. Now, Twitter:\n\n $\"\"$ \n\nWhy is that image so big? Because instead of keeping a logical, nicely arranged design, they put the fucking follow button AT THE BOTTOM OF THE WINDOW. WHY? What possible functional/usable improvement does this bring? If you wanted a more explicit follow button, why put it a million fucking miles away? I actually missed this, because it was so out of my range of vision. It's something that could be good (make following easier) implemented in a crappy way (completely away from everything else that applies.) Yes, that is the size I use Tweetie, and used Twitter at. That's my normal environment. Tweetie works the same regardless of window size. Twitter? Yeah, fail.\n\nThere's other stuff, but I'm done at this point. Again, this isn't about HIG purity, it's about vision, seeing and functionality. I don't mind the iOS influence, I mind that the fucking application is harder to use and that things I need to easily see are now hard to see. It's just a shit UI on levels that UIs should be shit on. And no, I don't give a fuck that it's free. Free is not cheap enough to deal with this crap. Page up/Page down is not enough. Nothing is enough to put up with such a thoughtless UI.