I’ve decided to move my Friday Links off the Wayne State Web Communications blog and on to my own. It’s nothing personal, I’ve just found that the post doesn’t have anything to do with Wayne State. In addition, recent blog posts are listed in Today@Wayne, a daily html email that goes out to all employees. I found myself on that list far too often. I’ll still be posting there, just more Wayne State focused articles. And of course all my posts will also feed in to EDUniverse, and you can follow me there.
Interested in the #NewNewTwitter? I was totally bummed by their “rolling out the redesigned Twitter over the next few weeks” and realization that it could be weeks before I could play with the desktop version. I have been following theirchangesforsometime. By chance I tried their trick of updating my mobile app and what do you know, within a few hours I got the #NewNewTwitter on my desktop.
Playing around with it a bit I found some things I really like and others that I’m not a fan of. I break them down below.
Timeline
Actually pretty clean and I love the inline conversation view. Not a fan of having to click three times to get photos to appear large though. It took me a minute to figure out that there is “Compose a new Tweet…” input on the left side right under my user information, I actually find this quicker.
@Connect
They did a great job taking the information overload of the “Activity” tab and bringing some sanity to it. I found that the “Activity” is now located in the #Discover area, not gone, just placed with the “not exactly related to me” stuff.
Conversations
Clicking on a tweet brings up the conversation inline. I like this because the three column sidebar before just wasn’t enough room, especially if you didn’t have a high resolution monitor. I wish it brought up the entire conversation though, not just the replied to and replied tweets.
Lists
Again the interface took another hit against lists. This time they tucked them away under the User icon -> Lists. At least this time you can get to them all on one page instead of only seeing half and having to click another link to get to the full list in the #NewTwitter interface.
List Timeline
I really like the list timeline because it acts like the regular timeline. But my biggest complaint is the lack of context around what you’re looking at. I feel like this page needs a header or breadcrumbs or something to identify the list. Maybe it’s just me but the top left of the page feels too much like a user profile.
Direct Messages
If you use DM’s at all you already know they took a huge UI hit in the mobile interface and now it is confirmed they are equally as hidden in the web interface. Hidden behind two clicks, Profile -> Direct Messages. As you can see from the shot below they don’t even get a full timeline view. It’s a shame.
DM Conversations
Clicking in to a DM conversation the window doesn’t expand and space is pretty limited. For me this just isn’t enough room, I would prefer if more of the conversation was in view or at least you could resize the window. The style of the conversation is very nice, just wish it wasn’t squeezed in a tiny window.
The Little Things
When focusing on the search box all your saves searches come up below. This is a nice change from the drop down menu in the older interface. It puts the search in the same context as the user’s action.
As you move through your timeline and click to view and open photos/videos/conversations the tweets start to space out. As soon as you open a tweet they offer a nice little “Close all open Tweets” button at the top of the page. Nice little big detail.
Final Thoughts
Don’t get me wrong, I really do like the direction Twitter is going with the increased emphasis on conversations but I just can’t get past their continued hate toward Lists and now Direct Messages. By trying to pull in new users to explore they are excluding the seasoned users, but I guess that is what the Tweetdeck redesign is for.
Do you have the #NewNewTwitter yet? If so, what do you think?
I also discovered a new download page when I logged out
The feel of the site is clean with far more prominent calls to action. Personally I like the direction they are going, focus on discovery instead of trying to spoon feed suggested topics to a new user.
I get a lot of questions via twitter, email and in person about comments I make in my EDU Checkup episodes. I answer all of them, some may take me longer to respond than others (sorry) but I eventually get to them all. Today as I am responding I thought I should start posting the questions and answers publicly. Of course I will keep the question askers and the institutions they work for private but I think the insight into my process/thoughts can help a lot of people out there. So for now I am going to post them here, I may transition to a few text posts on EDU Checkup like HigherEdLive did a few weeks ago. Feel free to give me feedback on the idea.
Question
We’re in the process of redesigning our website and are using a main navigation bar that does NOT drop down a submenu when rolled over.
I believe I’ve heard you comment that that was the recommended format, but I can’t remember the primary reasons. Would you mind letting me know if that’s still the better format over using navigation that does drop down submenu items when rolled over (we have people requesting this for our site)?
Answer
For me the homepage isn’t a “directory” to get to the major sections of the site. It’s more of a gateway to start determining who the visitor is and once they choose a path then they can be given more of a directory type of navigation. The primary audience for the homepage is prospective students but any number of audiences can start there so you can’t exclude them.
Secondly having a drop down under each menu item adds a whole separate level of complexity. How many items should be under each? Should they be alpha? Should it be based on process through the school? Should it be based on traffic? What if a dean/president wants a link in there, what is your justification for adding/removing items?
For me when exploring higher education sites and all the usability studies I have done and watched with our students shows they don’t use our homepage as a directory. If they know what they are looking for the will most likely search for it in the search form instead of hunting through menus. But every institution’s audience is different so I would suggest doing some tests with real students and just watching them interact with your proposed new site or other sites with similar functionality. You may also want to split that group into one you explicitly ask and ones you don’t.
Not a lot of people know that I am addicted to great package design. I guess now even more people know. Scrolling through my feeds today I ran across these Heineken’s Limited Edition STR Bottles. I have always enjoyed Heineken’s design and I think this puts it over the top. If every company had great design like this shopping would actually be enjoyable.
The bottles change color in black light and are targeted to nightclubs.
The Heineken Black Light STR Bottle just launch bi-coastally at the “Heineken Inspire” event in Los Angeles and the “US Open Player Party” in New York City. The bottle will also be available at select entertainment establishments nationwide in the coming weeks.
