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Twitters new and blazingly fast interface

jacquesmattheij.com

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Re: Twitters new and blazingly fast interface

#11

Post by corin_ »

I hate #newtwitter more than anyone, but I disagree with the logic that just because people don't like it, it's neccesarily a bad move - lot's of people don't like change.

I've seen it a couple of times on big community websites when people complained about a new design, and then a week later realised that just because it started off not feeling like the site they grew to love, it didn't mean it wasn't a huge improvement.

They key is that, after you force users to switch, it has to be good enough that they realise you were acting in their best interests - if you force them to switch to something that really is much worse, that's when it becomes a problem.

I was wondering: if someone used the Twitter API to create basically a clone of the original site, would that be against the Ts & Cs, and if not could this be got around somehow. For example if someone made it and open sourced it, I could host it myself with my own API key, and without marketing it anyone other than myself and my friends Twitter wouldn't know or care?

Re: Twitters new and blazingly fast interface

#14

Post by icebraining »

iamjustlooking wrote: post #5

Sometimes I feel like the only one who likes new twitter.

I'm sure plenty do, but satisfied people don't complain, so you never hear from them.

Frankly, I don't use Twitter enough to be affected by their UI in general, but I strongly dislike the URL hacks. I think websites should stick to real URLs, and only use Javascript page changes if the new History methods are available.

Re: Twitters new and blazingly fast interface

#15

Post by jnorthrop »

"Hint: if people stick to your old interface rather than to migrate to the new and shiny one then they probably have their reasons. Forcing them is not going to make them happy."

This leads to a dangerous line of thinking. There will always be a group of users who are resistant to change, and during a time of change they will be most vocal. If you listen to them you'll stagnate -- which is almost always the kiss-of-death for a company like Twitter. To be innovative you have to take risks and that includes the risk of angering certain people.

Re: Twitters new and blazingly fast interface

#16

Post by 0x12 »

jnorthrop wrote: post #15

"Hint: if people stick to your old interface rather than to migrate to the new and shiny one then they probably have their reasons. Forcing them is not going to make them happy." This leads to a dangerous line of thinking. There will always be a group of users who are resistant to change, and during a time of change they will be most vocal. If you listen to them you'll stagnate -- which is almost always the kiss-of-d…

Slower+buggy is not an improvement.

I can't count the number of times that the new interface has reported 'twitter is over capacity', 'you have already tweeted that' (when it wasn't true) and a whole pile of other errors, if it worked at all. Page load times of several minutes on a 10 Mbit connection on a very fast machine are ridiculous.

Of course you have to 'take risks to innovate'. But rolling out buggy and slow software is not innovation, especially not when it breaks web conventions (take a look at the new urls).

Re: Twitters new and blazingly fast interface

#17

Post by TobbenTM »

0x12 wrote: post #16
jnorthrop wrote: post #15

"Hint: if people stick to your old interface rather than to migrate to the new and shiny one then they probably have their reasons. Forcing them is not going to make them happy." This leads to a dangerous line of thinking. There will always be a group of users who are resistant to change, and during a time of change they will be most vocal. If you listen to them you'll stagnate -- which is almost always the kiss-of-d…

Slower+buggy is not an improvement. I can't count the number of times that the new interface has reported 'twitter is over capacity', 'you have already tweeted that' (when it wasn't true) and a whole pile of other errors, if it worked at all. Page load times of several minutes on a 10 Mbit connection on a very fast machine are ridiculous. Of course you have to 'take risks to innovate'. But rolling out buggy and slow…

Sometimes you have to take one step back to take two steps forward.

Re: Twitters new and blazingly fast interface

#18

Post by Wilya »

I really am curious as to why the new interface works so absurdly badly.

It's not even a question of being a bit slow, the thing uses constantly 90% of my cpu (I'm using a low end netbook), which makes it technically unusable, and it's not like it does that much work. Hell, it just print a timeline.

The only thing missing from the mobile interface is a basic auto-refresh function.

Re: Twitters new and blazingly fast interface

#19

Post by tintin »

Wilya wrote: post #18

I really am curious as to why the new interface works so absurdly badly. It's not even a question of being a bit slow, the thing uses constantly 90% of my cpu (I'm using a low end netbook), which makes it technically unusable, and it's not like it does that much work. Hell, it just print a timeline. The only thing missing from the mobile interface is a basic auto-refresh function.

My guess: bad programming, using big frameworks and implementing cool and overhyped features that don't matter.

Unlimited scrolling is nice, but not necessary. Dynamic loading of content is nice, but not necessary. And the list goes on...

The mobile website is what Twitter should be.

Re: Twitters new and blazingly fast interface

#20

Post by brown9-2 »

Wilya wrote: post #18

I really am curious as to why the new interface works so absurdly badly. It's not even a question of being a bit slow, the thing uses constantly 90% of my cpu (I'm using a low end netbook), which makes it technically unusable, and it's not like it does that much work. Hell, it just print a timeline. The only thing missing from the mobile interface is a basic auto-refresh function.

90% of your CPU?

I am the only one who has never seen problems like this with it?

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