Twitter shows some iOS and Web users a new interface to make it easier to follow threaded conversations, the company announced. A gif posted by the Twitter support account shows the new test interface in action, with lines and indents to make it easier to see who is responding to whom in a Twitter thread. The feature first appeared on the Twitter twttr prototype app last year, and builds on the iOS update released in January.
The changes are an attempt to make two-way conversations “easier to read and follow,” according to the company. Current Twitter conversations can quickly become cluttered and difficult to understand, especially when dozens of users respond to each individual tweet in a conversation. This means that even a high-level interview with the CEO of Twitter can quickly become almost impossible to follow.
Your conversations are those of Twitter, so we try to make them easier to read and follow.
Some of you on iOS and on the Web will see a new layout for responses with lines and indentations that will make it clearer who is talking to whom and to fit more convo in a single view. pic.twitter.com/sB2y09fG9t
– Twitter support (@TwitterSupport) May 5, 2020
Along with the new interface, Twitter says it is also experimenting with hiding the “Like”, “Retweet” and “Reply” icons default for replies, in a movement that should allow more tweets to fit on one screen. This change is also being tested on a “small group” of Twitter users on iOS and the web.
From the promotional images, the new chat interface looks like a big improvement over what Twitter currently offers. But we will have to wait to see how well it withstands Twitter’s relentless chaos in the wild before wider deployment is possible.
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