Twitter DM Redesign
Why redesign?
I came back from work a certain day and jumped on my favorite app Twitter to check on my feeds and notifications. I saw I had a couple of messages and once I clicked to check my message list the message notification icon disappeared, meanwhile I had my food on the fire and I jumped out to check it out. On returning to my phone some minutes later and continued my business on Twitter.
1 week later I saw another message from the same person stating that I just lost a design gig because I ignored his DM (direct message), Yes I did ignore his message but it wasn’t on purpose but because my notifications were gone once I clicked on them without actually reading the message. I was furious because I just lost a gig because of a poorly design UX (User experience).
Research
Was I the only one facing or seeing this as a challenge? To my frustration, I set out to sample the opinion of some people about their experience with Twitter DM. 80% of those I reached out to have either had an issue with the DM or seen as a snub because they are not well notified by the app about their Direct messages. I went further to ask them what they feel should be done to improve the UX of Twitters’ DM. They made mention of a lot of features but most of them had some reoccurring requests.
They are;
- Ability to know who sent the last message by simply looking through the message list.
- Ability to reply to single chats and not the entire conversation.
- Ability to delete messages for everyone.
- Ability to have the message notification one for as long as the messages remain unread.
Redesign
Below is the screenshot of the current layout of the app and the redesigned layout of the app.
Conclusion
Users find direct messaging as an important way to relate personally with a friend online, clients find prospective freelancers on twitter and communicate through DM. This has to be optimized for effective communication and if these suggestions are taken heed to it will increase the use of this feature.
You can view and duplicate the Figma file here.
Leave a comment on whether you will like twitter to implement this feature.
Thanks for your attention.
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