Twitter On The Web And Mobile Has A New Look To Make It 'Unique And Focused'

When it comes to technology, constant change is a must. That is because the ecosystem follows the trends and hunger for updates.

Twitter is the microblogging platform, famous for those who want to quick shout out, popular among politicians and businesses, as well as others. And this time, it is changing something so subtle, that many may not realize. But what is certain, those things can change the looks and feel of Twitter.

That is because Twitter has started rolling out a handful of design tweaks to its web client and mobile apps.

The company’s Design account detailed them in a thread.

And the most visible one, involves Chirp, which is Twitter’s first proprietary typeface.

The typeface that was first introduced back in January, becomes more dominant. Here, according to Twitter, one of the main advantages of Chirp is ability to align the text of tweets written in Western languages to the left-hand side of the interface.

The company said that it's something that should make it easier to read content as users scroll through their timeline.

The next design update, is a tweak in colors.

Twitter said that it starts using less blue, and increase the contrasts, so that both frequently used icons and visual content like images stand out.

" [...] a change made to draw attention to the photos and videos you create and share," said Twitter.

"Yes, the follow buttons look different, but they’ll help you see what actions you’ve taken at a glance."

For users who like to customize their Twitter experience, Twitter plans to roll out even more color palettes.

And lastly, Twitter said that it has also cleaned up a lot of visual clutter.

"There are fewer gray backgrounds and unnecessary divider lines. We also increased space to make text easier to read," Twitter explained. "This is only the start of more visual updates as Twitter becomes more centered on you and what you have to say."

Unfortunately for Twitter, days after it released the design changes to make the platform more accessible, lots of people started complaining.

For example, one autistic user told the company that removing the divider lines and making its colors and buttons high contrast made the site “extremely uncomfortable.”

“As an autistic person, removing lines and shifting to high-contrast makes using the site extremely uncomfortable now,” Twitter user @MxKelsieSkye said. “Also the font appears fine when I look closely, but for some reason it’s making my vision blurry the longer I use the site. This is a bad beta I hope.”

Another user said he could not read the Chirp font at all.

Others stated they have medical conditions, and the changes prevent them from reading Twitter without getting a headache.

“The new typeface worsens my astigmatism. I cannot read without having a headache. My systems typeface is tailored for my eyesight,” one Twitter user said.

The complaints poured in, and this forced Twitter to undo some of the most notable changes.

“We’re making contrast changes on all buttons to make them easier on the eyes because you told us the new look is uncomfortable for people with sensory sensitivities. We’re listening and iterating,” Twitter said via its Twitter Accessibility account on Friday.

Twitter went on to explain that it had sought feedback from people with disabilities throughout the process of creating a new design, but "people have different preferences and needs and we will continue to track feedback and refine the experience,” the company said.

“We realize we could get more feedback in the future and we’ll work to do that.”