Twitter Re-designed !!

If you logged-in to your twitter account, you probably have noticed the change in your twitter home page. Twitter made some changes to it’s interface design.  This does not include any new features (well, one). It's mostly cosmetic changes.

Moving The Tabs

The most significant change you'll notice on the logged-in homepage (/home) is that the tabs that were on the top of the timeline have been moved to the right sidebar. There are couple reasons for doing so. For one thing, it makes them larger targets and easier to access. But more importantly, it was an investment in the future. Twitter plans to have more tabs, and there were not much space putting them along the top. This was the driving factor for this redesign, but you won't see all the benefits until a future release (hopefully, very soon!).

Ajax for speed

When you click on the Home or @Replies tab when you're already on that page, the updates are now refreshed via Ajax, instead of loading the whole page, which should be faster.

Action icons: When you need them
At first you may wonder where the star and reply swoosh beside every update went. Hover over an update to see them show up.

Lighter, Prettier, Simplified

Besides hiding the icons until you need them, twitter has done many things to try and make the look of the page less cluttered -- like lightening the lines between posts and spacing things out more. Some things have made smaller (like logo), while other, more important things, have made bigger (like the tabs and the Update button). Some things twitter made the tough choice to get rid of all together (see below).

Some things have been done for pure aesthetic reasons -- like rounding some corners (which you won't see on Internet Explorer but will in Firefox or Safari -- or Chrome).

New design customizer

For some people, this design probably does not look better. If you've customized your Twitter colors, it's possible you have a combination that doesn't look quite right with this new design.

One new feature that has added is a completely revamped design customizer, which you'll find under Settings / Design.

With this tool, you can choose from pre-designed themes, as well as play with your color scheme and background and see the results in real time.

Removed Archive tab

In the interest of simplification, Twitter has removed the "Archive" tab from /home which showed you your own updates. The reason is, it showed you the same stuff you see on your own profile page, it was oddly named, and people rarely used it. It didn't deserve the space it took. If you miss it, hopefully you'll get used to going to your profile page (which you can get to by clicking on your picture or the Profile link up top).