{"id":14303,"date":"2019-02-21T02:18:43","date_gmt":"2019-02-21T02:18:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/rsoftsolution.com\/blog\/twitter-opens-applications-for-its-prototype-program-first-tests-to-focus-on-fixing-conversations.html"},"modified":"2019-02-21T02:18:43","modified_gmt":"2019-02-21T02:18:43","slug":"twitter-opens-applications-for-its-prototype-program-first-tests-to-focus-on-fixing-conversations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rbsitsoftwaresolution.in\/blog\/twitter-opens-applications-for-its-prototype-program-first-tests-to-focus-on-fixing-conversations.html","title":{"rendered":"Twitter opens applications for its \u2018prototype\u2019 program, first tests to focus on fixing conversations"},"content":{"rendered":"

Twitter <\/a> today is opening up applications<\/a> for its new testing program, first announced at CES<\/a> in January. The program potentially can cover any and every aspect of the Twitter experience, but the first set of tests will focus on how interactions between people, and specifically replies, appear on Twitter.<\/p>\n

They will include a new design for replies to make it easier to follow a conversation; rounded shapes on reply tweets; indents to follow responses; hiding engagement and sharing behind a tap to bring out the content of replies; and introducing colors to add more context.<\/p>\n

We got an early look at these features when we saw the \u201cbeta\u201d app in January<\/a>\u00a0(which is now referred to as a prototype rather than beta effort); read on for more on all the features.<\/p>\n

Improving the look and feel of how Twitter works is a tall order, to say the least. Many<\/a> have pointed out, and the company now admits, that back-and-forth tweets are too hard to follow. Given that Twitter\u2019s core premise is that of a platform for conversations, that not only limits the product\u2019s usefulness, but it potentially puts off newcomers as well.<\/p>\n

These issues recently came to a head when Twitter\u2019s own CEO Jack Dorsey attempted to participate<\/a> in a tweet-based interview with journalist Kara Swisher. As their conversation continued, Twitter\u2019s failings on this front were on clear display. Despite the use of a public hashtag<\/a>, people were confused as to how to track the reporter\u2019s questions and @jack\u2019s answers.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis thread was hard,\u201d Dorsey tweeted<\/a> at the end of the interview. \u201cNeed to make this feel a lot more cohesive and easier to follow.\u201d<\/p>\n

While interviews with major tech execs aren\u2019t an everyday occurrence on Twitter (yet?), longer conversations with threaded replies are, and they\u2019ve perhaps become even more prevalent after Twitter doubled its character count<\/a> from 140 to 280 in late 2017. That change allowed people to share their expanded thoughts with more nuance, which in turn prompted more thoughtful replies.<\/p>\n

Around the same time, Twitter turned \u201ctweetstorms\u201d into an official product<\/a>, allowing people to tweet out a series of connected thoughts, each which invite their own related series of responses.<\/p>\n

With all these changes, tracking the growing amount of back-and-forth has become overly complex, especially when a conversation has a lot of participants.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s the problem the new testing program aims to better understand and eventually solve.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s kind of a new take on our thinking about product development,\u201d Sara Haider, Twitter\u2019s director of product management, said in an interview in January. \u201cOne of the reasons why this is so critical for this particular feature is because we know we\u2019re making changes that are pretty significant.\u201d<\/p>\n

Within a separate, standalone app, the company will roll out experiments that allow the Twitter community to more directly participate in the early development process. At launch, that means fixing conversations. But over time, Twitter aims to use this platform to try out new ideas before they make their way to the public product.<\/p>\n

Fixing conversations could be one of the biggest changes to Twitter to date, she noted, which is why it\u2019s critical for the company to get it right.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe need you to be part of this process, so that we know we\u2019re building the right experience,\u201d Haider said.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Above: the development build at CES; the new product will look different, we\u2019re told<\/em><\/p>\n

Like the build TechCrunch previewed in January<\/a>, the soon-to-launch Twitter prototype will feature an entirely new design for Replies where the conversations themselves have a rounded, more chat-like shape and are indented so they\u2019re easier to follow. It won\u2019t be the first time<\/a> it has tried this, but softer edges, it seems, are thought to look more human.<\/p>\n

The company isn\u2019t yet sharing images, but says you can imagine the Replies look more like the chats you see in Direct Messages \u2014 that is, they\u2019re more rounded, but not exactly speech bubbles.<\/p>\n

Engagements, sharing options and other tweet details, meanwhile, will also get hidden from view to further simplify things. You will have to tap on the tweets in order to view them, Twitter says. Again, the aim here will be to put the focus more on what\u2019s being said, not to act on it. This is actually an interesting shift, since so much in social media has been focused around engagement. Now, Twitter\u2019s going to see if taking away some of those engagement nudges will, essentially, keep people around longer.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Above: Engagements are hidden on the development build seen at CES<\/em><\/p>\n

Making conversations color-coded to highlight the tweets from the original poster as well as those tweets from people you follow is a straight play at giving more visual cues to the reader of a conversation.<\/p>\n

\u201cReader\u201d might be the operative word here.\u00a0One of Twitter\u2019s big issues with conversations is that they can be too noisy when too many people get involved. One solution to that might also be to try to think of how that might get limited, either so that only certain replies are seen (which is something that Twitter is already doing to some extent, by putting replies from people you follow at the top), or perhaps so that not all people can reply \u2014 an idea that the CEO himself has teased<\/a> as a possibility. Both position Twitter as a reading-first, not engagement-first, experience, which is why making those replies easier to read is so important.<\/p>\n

In the development build we saw last month, those colors were overly saturated for testing purposes. In the prototype, they\u2019ve been dialed down. Now, people you follow will be in blue and the responses from the original poster are gray.<\/p>\n

The reply highlighting is now just a shadow line along the reply, as opposed to the entire reply being colored, Twitter tells us.<\/p>\n

The company says it will only accept a couple of thousand testers into the program. But unlike many beta programs, which are closed, testers aren\u2019t under NDA. Instead, they\u2019re encouraged to tweet about the test and discuss the changes with the broader Twitter community so more people can weigh in with their thoughts.<\/p>\n

In addition, testers will be able to submit feedback through a closed form or they can just tweet to Twitter\u2019s teams.<\/p>\n

The tweet-and-reply system has been a thorn in Twitter\u2019s side for years. Because Twitter was originally designed as a short-form, SMS-like platform, it never anticipated how it would evolve into the discussion platform it has become today.<\/p>\n

The company has tried in vain to figure out how to simplify things for users for years. For example, it added connecting lines<\/a> between tweets and responses, made @usernames<\/a>\u00a0in replies a part of the tweet\u2019s metadata and\u00a0even changed the Reply icon<\/a> itself. Recently,\u00a0it\u00a0added an \u201coriginal tweeter\u201d badge<\/a>\u00a0to conversation threads, too.<\/p>\n

The company says it will mostly invite English and Japanese speakers to the testing program. Participants must follow the Twitter Rules to be invited. However, they don\u2019t necessarily need to be longtime Twitter users. In fact, the company tells TechCrunch it aims to have a range of people involved, from those who don\u2019t use Twitter often to those who use it consistently.<\/p>\n

Those interested in applying to the program can do so from the tweet posted by the @TwitterSupport account or can use this link.<\/a>\u00a0If accepted, users will receive an email informing them of the next steps.<\/p>\n

Article source: http:\/\/feedproxy.google.com\/~r\/techcrunch\/social\/~3\/-wsZlFF3eG8\/<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Twitter today is opening up applications for its new testing program, first announced at CES in January. The program potentially can cover any and every aspect of the Twitter experience, <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3],"tags":[10,7,14,15,6,12,11],"class_list":["post-14303","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-latest-update","tag-computer-news","tag-downloads","tag-microsoft-download-news","tag-networking-updates","tag-technology-update","tag-wordpress-plugin-download","tag-wordpress-theme-download"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t