Evidently X is contemplating one other UI replace, this time targeted on the Like icon, which can quickly be altering to a thumbs up as an alternative.
As you possibly can see on this instance, in a publish from consumer Sawyer Merritt, some customers at the moment are seeing a thumbs up icon as an alternative of the standard coronary heart, whereas the icon has additionally been moved to the left-hand facet.
Right here’s a side-by-side comparability of what I’m seeing within the app versus this new format:
The engagement choices have been rearranged alongside the underside of the publish, with the guts changed by a thumb.
Which looks like an odd change, contemplating established routine behaviors within the app. However then once more, Elon Musk is eager to stamp his personal imprint onto each ingredient of what Twitter had as soon as been, and he has proposed much more sweeping adjustments to the UI than this.
Like, for instance, eradicating the publish operate buttons altogether, and reverting to a bodily response-based engagement course of.
Musk has instructed that he needs the feed to be “extra clear,” with updates like this set to simplify and enhance the method. And from a visible perspective, that makes some sense, nonetheless eradicating the operate buttons may also seemingly influence general engagement, as a result of customers received’t have that instant immediate guiding them to react.
That’s seemingly why X backed off of its plan to make this the default for all customers, including this up to date, “clear” show as an choice as an alternative.
However the swap to the thumb icon as an alternative of the guts appears barely totally different, in that it’s not simplifying or streamlining the UI in any respect, it’s simply shifting issues round, and switching out the guts.
Until, in fact…
As you possibly can see on this instance, shared by X Every day Information, some X customers are additionally reporting that they’ve each thumbs up and thumbs down icons showing under posts within the app.
Which might give customers a easy means to sign each their curiosity or dislike of any publish in-stream, by way of a direct, up-front choice.
That might work as an algorithm coaching device, serving to to additional customise and personalize your X expertise. And with each, the swap to a thumb icon makes much more sense.
We don’t know, in fact, as a result of X hasn’t shared any official data on the take a look at, and it doesn’t have a PR division to ask both. So we’re left to take a position, but it surely does appear like it could be shifting to an up to date system designed to facilitate higher customization in-stream.
