Twitter Reacts to the #Dickbar Uproar
newsgrange.com
newsgrange.com
This is a good recipe for making me hate you as a designer. You don't always know better than the user. Options reflect that there multiple ways people prefer to do things. Eliminating options may be more "elegant", but elegance means nothing if I hate using you interface.
People write frustrated and angry posts saying things like "you don't always know better than the user." You're decrying the method, not the choices, but its the choices you hate.
When people make "opinionated software" we end up with much more useful tools, better experiences, and innovative ideas. Without designers forcing things on you that you don't necessarily want, and not giving you an option to turn it off, you end up with animated Myspace backgrounds, skinable MP3 players, and corporate portals. With that attitude, we get clean, informational, useful Facebook profiles, elderly and technophobic people using music software instead of carrying CDs, and Basecamp/Emacs org-mode/appropriate organization tools for the right job.
I agree - the trending topics bar is not only buggy, it's freaking annoying. I personally haven't started looking to switch clients because I'm assuming it wont be long before it gets nixed. But I applaud the gall that goes behind pushing it out. I want people developing the software I use to try and enable (and push us along towards) greater things. If something happens I don't like, the world is a large place. I can go find someone else who hasn't gone crazy who writes competing software. But I'm not going to trash Twitter for taking that risk. Should they have thought it through more? I think so. Should they keep doing things in a similar spirit? Yes.
Indeed. However, the poor choice would not matter if there was option to fix that.
we end up with much more useful tools, better experiences, and innovative ideas.
I definitely agree with the 2nd and 3rd points, but how is a piece of software more useful or a better experience because I cannot customize it to be more useful to myself?
you end up with animated Myspace backgrounds, skinable MP3 players, and corporate portals.
Actually, two of these are examples of designers not giving an option to change things. Backgrounds should be able to be turned off (see how most IM clients will allow you to disable font styles to make things readable when talking to that friend who uses dark purple text on a black background). Corporate portals are example where there's no choice, assuming I'm reading that right. As for "skinnable MP3 players", I absolutely love foobar2000 specifically for that feature. I'm truly not getting how that's a bad thing, at all.
But I'm not going to trash Twitter for taking that risk. Should they have thought it through more? I think so. Should they keep doing things in a similar spirit? Yes.
This is where I think we simply disagree in philosophy. I can see how, as a designer, forcing new and interesting interfaces on a user can sometimes lead to innovation and change for the better. But as a user, I've found that I really dislike 99% of the time that's attempted, and I'd rather have the ability to overwrite what a bad designer decided was brilliant. There are good designs out there that I'm fine with and have never had to change, but most of the time, one interface does not fit everyone. Giving the user choice to tailor the interface to their preference and their use reflects that.
Edit: to expand further, I strongly agree with statement "good design should be transparent". The user should not have to think about the UI; it should enable them to do what they'd like painlessly. If a user goes looking for an option to change something that annoys them in the interface, then the interface is getting in the way of the user.
As a side note, this philosophy can be seen at the root of people who love Apple/hate Apple. Those who love Apple tend to admire them for their excellent sense of design and wonderfully made products. Those who hate Apple tend to dislike the idea that Apple tends to make decisions for its users, and have run up against that lack of choice one too many times. At least, that's my perspective as someone on the "generally disliking" side.
The motivation that I admire behind this feature (and I presume that you do not) is making a choice that makes some (most? all?) users uncomfortable (surprised? annoyed?) because they believe it will make the service better (in the most broad sense possible).
People being aware of what is trending has the potential to keep people abreast of up-to-the-second current affairs, thoughts that are permeating the community, and ideas that similar people have that you may find intriguing.
The community also has a prevailing interest in Twitter making money, since if it folds, the community ceases to exist (this is for values of community contained in "people currently using Twitter") and any good Twitter Co. can provide ceases to increase.
Are these good enough reasons to introduce a truly hateful piece of UI? I don't think so. I'm glad they're willing to make decisions for reasons like the ones above, even if I think this one was not a good one. I personally am unconvinced trending topics can be introduced well, but I don't think introducing unpopular things is bad, especially when it's unpopular for the reasons you've stated.
I find the distinction you make between "appliances" and "tools" to be non-existent - everything is an appliance at some level, and all tools are opinionated at some level.
And the problem with skinable MP3 players is?
And how do myspace or corporate portals relate to a twitter client?
Some people are still angry about Winamp.
I haven't used winamp in about 10 years - but originally it was a very nice little audio-player, and iirc skinnable from day 1. Whatever bad they may have done to it must have happened after the skin-support.
Edit: I'd also appreciate if people who disagree with my questions would respond rather than downvote.
The problem with MySpace was not that it was customisable, it was that it was not customisable enough. What they should have done was to allow users to customise their page -- and also to allow users to customise how other people's pages would look to them.
The presence of an uproar from your users about a new feature, or your users nicknaming it "dickbar" are also signs of an "inelegant implementation".
If an alerting mechanism is in your face all the time, it's not a good alerting function.
Doesn't the iPhone still pop-up a modal dialog that you have to dismiss (and may accidentally interact with) for SMS alerts? (I personally can't believe anyone puts up with that -- you have to jailbreak your phone to get a better interface on that?) People stopped complaining about that a while ago, they'll stop complaining about this functionality of the twitter app soon enough.
Although, I like the suggestion in the OP to "[give] users a way to pay for the app to make it go away." That's a valid solution, and acknowledges that what shows up in the #dickbar is income related.
When you're in the middle of your tweets you are focused on moving upwards in the list and forwards in time towards the latest events. It is distracting to have the here-and-now intrude - you are still in the past. However if you make your way to the top you have read all the tweets and are conceptually right-up-to-date - what better time to see what else is happening in the world in the here-and now. Plus if you've run out of tweets you'd be much more likely to have a look at what else is going on.
The issue with Quickbar is not that it is an annoying overlay, but the fact it was added. It is clearly something designed to stuff promoted posts down people's throat, and it looks like Twitter is going to keep doing it even with the new version (it just won't be an overlay). This is how you kill an established goodwill - a major strategic mistake that creates huge opportunity for the competing apps.
Twitter now faces a choice between (a) backing off and making Quickbar optional and (b) modifying their API T&C to force other apps prioritize trending/ported content differently. It'd be interesting to see what they do.
P.S. I wouldn't mind them having it there if it wasn't so much darker and more distracting than the rest of the interface. I know it's supposed to catch your attention, but still.
Ask yourself, would ATT interrupt your calls to alert you of popular conversations from other users, even if they were sponsored? I highly doubt that.
They need money somehow, and the service is the only way they can do that. That doesn't mean I think they're doing it particularly well.
On a semi-related note, I wonder how feasible it'd be for twitter to actually become an open protocol with distributed servers - something like wave was supposed to be, but leveraging the user base to make it an attractive proposition.