Elon Musk has all the time most well-liked minimalist design, with as many buttons and controls hidden as attainable, leaving a extra glossy and simplistic look.
That’s the method that he’s taken at his different firms, so it ought to come as no shock to see that Musk can also be trying to implement a extra stripped-back design ethos at X as effectively.
We’ve already seen this with the adjustments to hyperlink previews within the app, whereas over the previous few months, we’ve additionally seen varied examples of X’s extra important pending redesign, which is able to take away all of the perform buttons and metrics from the underside of X posts in-stream, with a purpose to put extra concentrate on the content material itself.
That’ll additionally change the way you work together within the app.
With a view to interact with posts, X will quickly change to a extra haptic-focused method, in that customers might want to swipe left to love and put up in-stream, and proper to answer.
Which, once more, clearly aligns with Elon’s minimalist imaginative and prescient, however it is going to be a big change in how folks work together within the app. And with most customers by no means participating with posts already, it looks like a dangerous transfer.
However that’s not the one UI shift coming to X.
X can also be experimenting with extra minimalist reformats, together with a simplified “faucet to broaden” perform, to extra simply learn longer posts.
Whereas it’s additionally creating new video controls, primarily based on extra intuitive engagement behaviors.
These are attention-grabbing additions, which align with making the X platform extra of an extension of pure motion and interplay, versus urgent handbook buttons on display screen.
However will customers come alongside for the experience, and comply with together with these much less upfront management choices?
It’s value noting right here that Twitter had lengthy grappled with how you can simplify the app, with firm execs viewing this as a key obstacle to its progress.
Again in 2018, then Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey famous that utilizing Twitter was “loads of work”, with many new customers having a poor expertise the primary time that they use the app, resulting in greater churn charges. Twitter had sought to enhance this, by improved suggestions and streamlined account set-up processes, however they may by no means seemingly get it proper, and maximize its enchantment amongst internet customers.
With this in thoughts, it’s exhausting to see how X’s coming revamp will assist. Positive, having fewer controls on display screen will imply much less visible muddle, however it would additionally make it rather more tough for brand new customers to grasp how you can work together with the app.
Possibly, ultimately, it will higher align with folks’s expectations. However proper now, it looks like a dangerous transfer, particularly for a platform that’s seen little to no person progress in nearly two years.
However Elon has a imaginative and prescient, and plainly nothing goes to face in his means of creating it a actuality.
And on the similar time, previous Twitter administration was additionally too threat averse on this respect, not often rolling out any change that hadn’t been beta examined for literal years beforehand.
It appears the optimum method might be someplace in between the 2, however perhaps, Elon’s accelerated improvement program is simply what the app wants.
