July 23, 2019
Over the months Twitter has been testing out new ways of clarifying users replies, be it highlighting replies from an original poster or identifying responses from connections etc.
These features have been rolled out on their beta test app “Twttr”, this included colour coding to signify replies, which was then changed to small notes to identify each user (“Author” “Mentioned” and “Follower”) however, Twitter are now testing out another version of this by using icons, rather than a note or title.
For example, a microphone icon highlights the author of the tweet. The @ symbol is applied to everyone who is tagged in the original post, and the icon of the person with a tick is someone you follow. Quite simple and easy enough to understand without having to learn anything new.
This could be incredibly useful whilst scrolling through your notifications to quickly identify who’s who without having to spend more time trying to figure what they’re responding to, and who they are which will, in turn, drive up interaction between users. My only issue with this is the way it’s currently looking. The identifying icons are all quite small and the same colour. Whilst the original colour coding test highlights were far too intrusive and in your face, the new version of this might be a bit *too* subtle. A mix of both icons and colour would definitely be a good step.
What do you think about this possible add? Twitter has been rather slow to update anything, and I wonder if we’ll see this change in the near future. It will definitely be interesting to see how users react to this!