A simpler design with less clutter and access to options with fewer taps and swipes
Those of you in the Twitter beta testing group will notice an update tonight that brings yet another drastic interface change to the app. In the second such change in the last few weeks, Twitter is changing the basic interface paradigm of the app. Gone is the left edge slide-in drawer and the pile of scrolling tabs at the top of the page, replaced by a simple three tab design — Home, Discover and Activity.
Notifications and messages have moved up to distinct buttons in the top action bar, with number badges indicating unread counts, that take you to a familiar full page display of the content when tapping them. Composing tweets now moves down to the bottom of the app, with buttons to add a picture, launch straight into the camera or go right to typing. The overflow menu button has an option to jump directly into your account with one tap, or go into a settings menu that is largely unchanged.
We have to say that overall we like this design quite a bit more than the previous one, which was already a big improvement over the one before it. There’s no indication if this will end up being a more or less “final” design to iterate on for a while, but for now if you’re in the Twitter beta program you can learn your way around the new UI.
Old (left) and new (right)