Twitter announced today that on May 28th all profiles will be switched to the new design they announced in April.
For those who haven’t seen it yet, here’s what my profile looks like
And here’s what it looks like when I try out the new layout:
Side by side:
And here’s the new design next to the Facebook’s profile design:
Not surprisingly there have been many comparisons between the new design and Facebook’s. It also seems to be getting a lot of negative feedback from some of the Twittersphere.
@twitter All the different font sizes make me feel sick when trying to read it.
— BadBunny (@BadBunnyHimself) May 6, 2014
@twitter NOOO — holder. (@hauntedrk) May 6, 2014
Check out more of the responses here.
Although it doesn’t seem welcome the change is coming. What are some of the changes we’ll be seeing with the new layout other than appearance?
One of the biggest features is the ability to pin a tweet to the top of a profile. Although a little out of character for what we’ve grown accustomed to on Twitter, it has great potential for businesses. For example, a business could highlight a promotional tweet or a response to an issue/change.
When viewing other profiles, users will be able to filter that profile’s tweets by:
- Tweets
- Tweets with photos/videos
- Tweets and replies
Also, the new design highlights tweets that have higher engagements numbers by making them appear slightly larger in the timeline. Although interesting to see easily what tweets are being responded to the best, this could pose an interesting dilemma for businesses. If a tweet that is responding to an issue/something negative gets a lot of hits and feedback, that tweet would appear larger, highlight the issue and all the responses.
Other changes to note for aesthetic purposes are the size changes. A profile picture is now 400×400 and the banner image is 1500×1500. As you can see from the examples I provided above, my banner image is too low quality for the new layout. This is something businesses accounts should take note of. Although a small detail, having a blurry, low quality image just won’t look good.
http://mashable.com/2014/05/06/twitter-profile-design-may-28/
http://www.searchenginejournal.com/everything-need-know-new-twitter-profiles/103563/
http://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/new-twitter-profile-layout-nj
Adriana M. Bóveda-Lambie, Ph.D. 