Twitter Redesign Forced Upon Everyone

It’s been almost a year (11 months anyway) since Twitter announced its redesign, which has come to be known as “New Twitter”. New Twitter is not so new anymore, so it makes tons of sense that Twitter is finally doing away with “Old Twitter”.

Those still clinging to the glory days of when most people didn’t really understand what Twitter was (maybe that’s still true, but it’s much more mainstream now either way), will soon have to part with the old design, as Twitter announced via Twitter that it is upgrading users this week, if they have not already done so themselves:

I definitely applaud Twitter’s redesign strategy of leaving the old style available for users who were fond of it. I can’t tell you how many times we’ve seen major sites implement major redesigns only to infuriate large portions of their user bases. Usually it doesn’t ended up mattering too much in the long run. I don’t think either Facebook or Netflix have many regrets about their own design changes which both sparked a great deal of backlash, but it was thoughtful of Twitter to ease users into the new design, even if that new design is far superior in many ways.

I don’t know what percentage of Twitter users were still using the old interface, but you also have to keep in mind that a very significant amount of Twitter use takes place on mobile apps as well.

The new Twitter makes the service’s web interface much more usable, as it is easier to see more parts of conversations and embedded media. Twitter only recently implemented this design concept on Twitter Search.

Here’s a video showing off the design if you’re still not familiar with it:

Twitter also announced that it has launched an HTML5 version of Twitter.com specifically for the iPad. This will be rolling out over the next week.

Earlier this week, Twitter announced that it has secured a new round of funding, which it will use to invest innovation and expansion. It also launched in two more languages.