Ah, Twitter. Unless you've been living under a rock (and I wouldn't blame you after the last few years), you're probably aware that the social media platform's new ownership has led to a few, er, teething problems. And acting as a perfect microcosm for the company itself, Twitter's new UI has been declared an absolute mess.
The various icons beneath a tweet have been tweaked, with extra information and spacing added. But from the double instance of a tweet's view count to inconsistent ordering, the whole enterprise suggests Elon Musk definitely fired all of the brand's competent designers. (Need a palette cleanser? Check out the best website templates around.)
Would it have been so hard to line up corresponding icons and statistics? (Image credit: @blockwonkel on Twitter/Future owns)
Right now, 'Twitter UI' is trending on, yes, Twitter. And after a cursory glance, it seems fair to say that over 100% of the comments are negative. The cluttered new design is reminding users of a 90s virus-infected Microsoft Internet Explorer, thanks to its cluttered mess of information. We'll let some tweets do the talking.
The new interface is so bad! Bring back the designers you fired. They are there for a reason. The spacing between icons on posts is WILD.December 23, 2022
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Worst part of the new twitter ui is this pic.twitter.com/CzlUNM2avfDecember 22, 2022
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The new Twitter UI is like some coked up exec burst in like “Hey! What if we just crammed everything in there and make it super distracting and cluttered? Yeah people will love it.” pic.twitter.com/pv5cCGeVnlDecember 23, 2022
Indeed, from a design perspective, Twitter isn't having a great time of late. The company's new Twitter Blue logo got roasted last week, while the whole buy-a-blue-tick debacle has been a well-publicised disaster.
So there we have it – one week before the end of the year, and we have a late contender for the worst web UI of 2022. For a roundup of the year, check out the best (and worst) web design trends of 2022.
Daniel John is Senior News Editor at Creative Bloq. He reports on the worlds of art, design, branding and lifestyle tech (which often translates to tech made by Apple). He joined in 2020 after working in copywriting and digital marketing with brands including ITV, NBC, Channel 4 and more.
