Thus if we reach for the action buttons to retweet and star, the card image gets displayed right where our finger presses, opening the article, instead.
The slower your internet connection, the worse this problem gets: you never know when the TwitterCard gets loaded. It's hit and miss. It's a constant annoyance. And therefore, worthy of this Failure Note.
I present you the facts:
We’ll be focusing on the tweet by Argonotes band leader Steve Hayman. Let’s touch that tweet to open it up and see where that link leads.
This is what we expect to see. Notice how on the bottom right the tweet sports action buttons to retweet and favor (star) it?
Yeah, we’ll reach out to press that star.
In a split second, the tweet contents and those action buttons went missing. It happens while Twitter is fetching and rendering the Twitter Card. Loading the image in the card causes a network delay. The slower your data plan, the more this happens.
Now isn’t that annoying? Not only are the tweet’s action gone, but right there where they were just half a second ago, the tweet now displays the Twitter Card’s picture.
But our finger already was reaching out to touch it! There is no way we can stop now!
So we press the picture by mistake, and wind up opening an unknown article on an unknown website, that could, potentially, use up so much memory that it crashes not only our Twitter client, but also our mobile device.
Yay, thank you, Twitter!
Second: Predict whether or not a tweet has a twitter card. If so, opening up the tweet could remove the action buttons immediately, avoiding the problem altogether, and put them back only after loading the rest of the card and its image.
Regular Twitter Feed on an iPad with iOS5
We’ll be focusing on the tweet by Argonotes band leader Steve Hayman. Let’s touch that tweet to open it up and see where that link leads.
Single Tweet Unfolds
This is what we expect to see. Notice how on the bottom right the tweet sports action buttons to retweet and favor (star) it?
Yeah, we’ll reach out to press that star.
Oops, nope, tweet goes blank while updating
In a split second, the tweet contents and those action buttons went missing. It happens while Twitter is fetching and rendering the Twitter Card. Loading the image in the card causes a network delay. The slower your data plan, the more this happens.
Twitter Card Image Shown Where Buttons Were
Now isn’t that annoying? Not only are the tweet’s action gone, but right there where they were just half a second ago, the tweet now displays the Twitter Card’s picture.
But our finger already was reaching out to touch it! There is no way we can stop now!
So we press the picture by mistake, and wind up opening an unknown article on an unknown website, that could, potentially, use up so much memory that it crashes not only our Twitter client, but also our mobile device.
Yay, thank you, Twitter!
What Twitter Could Do to Fix It
First of all: they need to continue testing the correct and usable working of their mobile apps on older mobile devices like Apple’s iPad #1. Yes, it is an older tablet (from 2010), but some people just do not have the money to replace their US$800 device every year. If we can test on one, then what is stopping Twitter?Second: Predict whether or not a tweet has a twitter card. If so, opening up the tweet could remove the action buttons immediately, avoiding the problem altogether, and put them back only after loading the rest of the card and its image.
Other Suggestions?
We don’t know everything. Do you have a potential solution for this usability failure? Please let us know!Worried about your own website?
Describe your problem to “failurenotes at protonmail dot com”, to discuss how we can solve your website‘s issues.