Twitter warns third party developers

Twitter needs to ensure user experience and user interface consistency on different clients

According to foreign media reports, Twitter issued a warning to third party developers at the end of 2012: they will soon reject the main developer's product via API access to Twitter, making the official version of mobile apps and web platforms the only way users can access them. As you can imagine, this message immediately caused an uproar among developers-the efforts of the developers, the Twitter platform to continue to improve. However, Twitter needs to ensure user experience and user interface consistency on a variety of clients--both users and advertisers will benefit from it.

In any case, Twitter needs are clear. For a brand that is worth billions of dollars, its web platform and mobile apps are poorly designed. As a result, its overall experience--the ability to push, letters, collect, and forward--is confusing. A bad experience ultimately threatens Twitter's advertising and profitability.

It turns out that Twitter's restrictions on third-party apps paved the way for the launch of an advertising API last month. Twitter's advertising API allows advertisers and advertising agencies to insert ads directly on Twitter and launch mass marketing. In an extremely diverse market, top companies also offer different clients on different platforms and devices while maintaining design consistency. This ensures that different clients can make full use of the advantages of different platforms, but also to ensure a high degree of consistency of the core experience, so that the popular promotion of products more easily realized.

Each year, the number of operating systems and devices grows exponentially-usually within a single product cycle-and the consistency of the user experience needs to be established from the start. The intricate digital design of navigation, layout, icons, and so on is only a by-product, the creative design process is the key, and the right beginning and the idea determines the development behind.

Overall analysis

People on the rapid development of science and technology industry relish, also can't wait to put technology to market. Applications and Web sites tend to be designed to transcend this short-sighted expectation. Instead, technology should be seen as a tool to enhance experience and solve everyday problems. To take advantage of this technological advance, our first step is to look around the world and see the trends that people need to experience.

"Creating something is not a design thing," says Gavin Lew, user centric operations director of UX Research and design, Gavin Loux. Technology cannot drive design. Technology is just a catalyst for design and a stepping stone. "In terms of product development, the underlying conceptual foundation (i.e. design purpose) requires technology to help it show this, rather than letting technology decide the purpose of the design at the outset."

In Wolff Olins, the world's leading creative agency, technology is seen as a gateway to content. "Because we fly so far, we know that technology can change the future," said Mike Abbink, creative director Mack Abink. Our team first looks to the future and then to the road. After that, technology can help us solve all kinds of problems. "Wolff Olins has the ability to provide design for all devices because they start with the most appropriate design and then proceed according to design ideas."

Ultimately, a series of goals-what the product can do, how the client can use it, and what practical problems to solve-can be tested in actual use. "All platforms are built on a common digital strategy," said Kevin Messing, executive creative director of Fry, a new york-based interactive design agency. "To be successful, the functionality and user experience of any interface must be consistent with the overall branding and consumption experience." So, our design is based on branding and consumer experience, and then we elevate something else to the same level as these experiences. ”

Organize your team

With this holistic view, the designer or design team must maintain docking to ensure a parallel user experience on different devices and systems (even at different stages of their development) when dealing with nuances of various devices and systems. Design docking enables different designers to maintain the same design strategy while leveraging the advantages of different platforms, whether Web, IOS, Android, or the ipad.

Abink's design projects often involve digital planners, brand consultants, UI designers, and content planners. "It's important to keep docking within the design," he says. The bigger problem we have to solve is to set up a strategy for all these things. Also, make sure that the experience of each user on the client is consistent with our team's understanding of the product. ”

Abink refers to the "docking" also need to face the future, which means that the design perspective to be based on the future of the platform, operating system and equipment understanding. He explains: "For us, the key word is the future--the prospect." Because if you have the foresight to see the future, you can be prepared early. With foresight, you can become more strategic and know how to use technology and different platforms to meet your creative needs. ”

"We encourage customers to design mobile and tablet sites like their main websites," Messing said. Even if the phones and tablet versions are going to be online in the future, it's best to design them as well. By studying current user data, we can predict the penetration rate and utilization rate of users and devices in the future. ”

From the beginning to the end of the concept

When the experience you want, and the devices and systems that carry the experience, are filtered out, you can start thinking about the user experience and the design of the user interface. This is usually related to the user process or use path, and there are different scenarios on different platforms. "We want to sift through the projects we want to achieve," Abink said. The first step is to define the capabilities of each project, such as how the user solves a problem, when and where to resolve it, what results we want users to achieve through this feature, and what features are featured on this platform?

"The very important experience on the PC side may seem very minor on the mobile side," Gavin Loux said. Compared to the internet in the home, users in the office, cars, streets or airports in the expectation of the experience is not the same. Understanding these differences is important for achieving an intuitive user experience. ”

The newspaper press, USA Today, is one of Wolff Olins's clients, and Wolff Olins's goal is to enhance the competitiveness of digital publications while maintaining the identity of their traditional print media, the report said. This requires a deep understanding of brand promotion, web design, graphic design, and marketing. The print version has a high demand for layout-for example, the financial sector uses the form of an information graph-and the network version needs to take advantage of the network. For example, in the National Rugby League (NFL) season, the USA Today online edition opens a fantasy NCAA forum where web users can experience interactive content that is completely impossible for a printed version. During that time, the brand identity was upgraded simultaneously in both the print and online editions.

Messing explains that in Fry, the user experience and user interface are implemented by a series of "invisible and tangible levers". Although the user experience and user interface have different internal processes, they still have to ensure that the experience interacts with and follows the interface.

In terms of user experience, messing and his team ask the following questions to guide themselves:

-Does the interface give you the same feeling as the brand gives you?

-Does the interface present the same quality as the brand?

-Does the user come to the conclusion that "Yes, I use this brand"?

On a cross device user experience, messing and his team ask:

-Do the interfaces on different devices use the same terminology, tags, and classifications?

-Do different interfaces use similar interactions for the same functional operation?

-Do different interfaces use the same visual language or icons, instructional illustrations, and color schemes?

-Does the user say "Yes, it feels familiar, and I know how to use this"?

Can answer these questions can achieve a goal: in different devices to achieve user experience differentiation, while ensuring the user's understanding of the product consistency. Messing said: "You can not simply mix content and function together, and then provide to the user." Moreover, the content or function itself is sometimes changed according to the characteristics of the device. ”

Messing for example, for clothing brands Lilly Pulitzer and watch Manufacturers Tourneau, their ultimate goal is the same: improve sales performance. But Lilly Pulitzer is a low-end clothing brand, consumers can browse online, while Tourneau is a high-end watch manufacturer, consumption will be a personal visit before buying. In both cases, the network end, the handset end and the flat End function are similar, but need to reconsider the design elements-to a large extent, navigation capabilities-while maintaining consistent rendering.

Therefore, fry company for them set up two different design goals: Lilly Pulitzer focus on online sales; Tourneau focuses on attracting consumers to meet with sales reps. To this end, Lilly Pulitzer E-commerce platform makes full use of its brand-specific visual temperament, such as different forms of printing effect, and allows users to sort and sorting, and then the user step-by-step direction to consumption. Instead, Fry created a "virtual disk" for Tourneau, similar to those in jewellery shops. Then, the user experience is as interesting and real as going to the physical store, and is eventually directed to arrange appointments with the sales Rep.

In these cases, the highly visible interface and design elements such as virtual pallets drive the user toward a specific goal. By setting this goal in advance, Fry offers a strong visual experience for Lilly Pulitzer on the ipad, eventually Lilly pulitzer50% sales to the ipad platform. and Tourneau's Web site content and ease of use after Fry Company's optimization, its traffic also increased by 140%.

The future of Twitter

Despite the outcry from developers about Twitter, Twitter is expected to achieve 1 billion of dollars in sales in 2014, a year after Twitter launched its advertising API. In addition to the growing user base, the consistency of the user experience ensures an advertiser's return on investment.

Twitter and other web companies accept the challenge with two layers of benefits: Users benefit from a good experience, and web companies benefit from more users using their Web sites. The design concept of the interface starts with being virtual and ideologically, setting the final goal first, and then determining which technologies can lead users to this goal. Finally, provide a differentiated design for different devices or operating systems-that is, to provide a different experience based on the different features of the PC, mobile, and tablet.

If you understand the design concept, Twitter needs are obvious. Gavin Loux said: "Compare Facebook's restrictions on the API and the confusing user experience that MySpace opened 6-8 years ago." Both have their pros and cons, but the ultimate way to lock them wins. Facebook now has its own problems, which is a successful strategy. ”

"Some people may find these restrictions to be an inconvenience, restrain competition and prevent a balanced development of the network," he added. This is sometimes right. But many companies think it's worth the sacrifice. Because whether we like the restrictions or not, it ultimately makes the user experience better. ”