Helping Twitter Help Twitter [UPDATED]

I was lucky enough to have New Twitter rolled out on me today. I’ve been playing with it and sending suggestions and critiques to Twitter’s @Feedback account. Read them, and then please let me know about your own experiences with it.

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And remember, these are in reverse-chronological order, so you might want to start from the bottom of the post.

Dear @Feedback: How does defaulting my own tweets out of Interactions help me keep track of how I’m interacting?

Dear @Feeback: When I click on Interactions to see what’s new, I must then click on New Interactions to really see what’s new. Why?

Dear @Feeback: #OldTwitter: Send out short messages to people. #NewTwitter: Click on a lot of stuff. How does that help tweeps?

Dear @Feedback: New tweets are indicated by blue lights or text. But so is the Interaction/Mentions you AREN’T on. Why?

Dear @Feedback: I guess being able to Retweet with Comment is never coming back. Big usability drop. Explain in 140 characters or less.

. @VodkaPundit also confused about why #newtwitter changed the main column to the rt side. Who reads from the middle of the page?@Feedback
Retweeted by Stephen Green
In reply to Stephen Green

Dear @Feedback: When I block a spammer — which I must do lots more often now — they no longer disappear from my TL. Why not?

Dear @Feedback: Clicking on a reply to me opens my original tweet, but there’s no visual or textual clue to the relationship. Why not?

Dear @Feedback: Usability is down. Spam is up. Don’t you think you lost your priorities somewhere along the way?

Dear @Feedback: When I click Refresh on my browser tab, new tweets don’t always show up either. Why?

Dear @Feedback: Sometimes, when I click on “new tweets” or interactions or whatever you’re calling it today, nothing happens. Why?

Dear @Feeback: When a microblogging website requires a flowchart to navigate, you’re doing it wrong. #Fail #NewTwitter

Dear @Feedback: In 140 characters or less, explain why a Retweet is an Interaction and not a Mention.

Dear @Feedback: I’ve pointed out more than a dozen flaws in my first 20 minutes with #NewTwitter. Did you spend ANY time with it at all?

Dear @Feedback: What’s the benefit of showing me tweeps “similar to me” who I’m already following?

Dear @Feedback: Difference between Mentions and Interactions is so subtle as to be useless. It’s the French cinema of social networking.

Dear @Feedback: Fixed column widths? Really? Who is that helping?

Dear @Feedback: It now takes three clicks and two page refreshes to get to a list. Whiskey Tango Foxtrot, Oscar? #fail

Dear @Feedback: I’m going to have to keep a whole browser window full of tabs open, just to avoid all the new clicking. So, thanks.

Dear @Feedback: I have no wish to “Discover” crap you’re paid to show me.

Dear @Feedback: I found my lists. And then I lost them again. #Fail

Dear @Feedback: When I click Connect, and the lefthand tweet window disappears, HOW DO I EFFING CONNECT?

Dear @Feedback: Thanks for all the hoops! My calves are going to be in great shape.

Dear @Feedback: When things that once took one click, now take two or three, you’re doing it wrong.

Dear @Feedback: 200 new spam followers in two weeks. Go back to getting the basics right.

Dear @Feedback: Where are my freaking lists? And why should I even have to look?

Dear @Feedback: I have the #NewTwitter. It’s gone from “it’s hard to find stuff” to “I don’t even want to look anymore.”

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Feedback has yet to address any of my complains or questions. What do you think?

UPDATE: I’ve spent a little more time getting to know New Twitter, and came up with a few more problems. Again, reverse chronological order applies.

Dear @Feedback: The command bar is too wide to get to the Blue new tweet icon on the right, on small screens and it doesn’t scroll. Huh?

Dear @Feedback: #NewTwitter isn’t a great name. How about Quickster?

Dear @Feedback: What has improved for tweeps in #NewTwitter? Feel free to reply with multiple tweets.

Dear @Feedback: Correction to my earlier complaint: User stats do show on Home tab. What makes Home more stat-friendly than Connect?

Dear @Feedback: New tweets that have shown up in Mentions (or vice versa) must still be Blue-Text clicked to show up in Interactions. Huh?

Dear @Feedback: Why should it take more than one click to get an individual tweet to where I can bookmark it or email it?

Dear @Feedback: How is it to the user’s benefit to have to click –more than once– to a special page to see basic stats about his account?

Dear @Feedback: How is a one-way follow an Interaction? Remember, all explanations in 140 characters or less.

This is microblogging, not rocket science. I would have switched to a Twitter desktop app long ago, except every single one of them was even worse than Twitter was. That’s changed now, but not because any of the applications got any better. In fact, Twitter purposely freezes them out of certain features.

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Nevertheless, I’ll be avoiding Twitter’s web page until they heal these self-inflicted wounds.

Recommendations?

ONE MORE THING: I think I’ve exhausted — literally — the new UI, and have just a handful more observations & questions.

Dear @Feedback: What rationale was used to decide which clicks would open pages, or popups, or menus? Any?

Dear @Feedback: When I’m RTed, they appear truncated in my timeline. Clicking doesn’t reveal the whole text. Why not?

Dear @Feedback: Thanks for finally adding “Follows You”/”Doesn’t Follow You” to website. Could you ditch everything else?

Dear @Feedback: #NewTwitter kills our old bookmarks. How does that benefit your users?

Dear @Feedback: Since I must copy & paste to RT with comment, why do you force me to copy & paste so much extraneous text?

Dear @Feedback: How many lists does the left side More Lists box show? It shows all of mine, plus a “Show All” button.

And finally, “Let’s admit that #Twitter was never a multibillion-dollar idea, and go back to being small, functional, and fun.”

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