MONDAY 5 AUGUST 2019Twitter’s redesign is leaving
disabled people behind
JENNIE KERMODE
Tweaking online platforms from time to time is considered essential by marketers.
But it’s also almost guaranteed to generate negative reactions from users. With this
in mind, the outpouring of complaints about the new Twitter design that we’ve seen
over the past few weeks will surprise no one – but for many disabled users, the
problem is a serious one. Where others find the redesigned site annoying to use, we
struggle to use it at all. What’s more, this is typical of a widespread problem with social media companies
ignoring the needs of disabled users.
In a context where design is heavily focused on looking good and encouraging users to engage with new
features, the basic functionality essential to engagement is often overlooked.
The new Twitter, for instance, produces a constant flow of tweets without prompting so that it’s necessary
to keep constantly scrolling upwards once you’ve started to read them. If you then want to add something to
a half-composed tweet at the top, you have to succeed in clicking on that box before it’s replaced by
something else – not easy if you struggle to move your hands quickly and can’t use the scroll button on your
mouse (both common problems for people with damaged joints).
Because the desktop Twitter interface is now mimicking the mobile one, there’s a lot more scrolling
involved in general, an issue magnified by the reduction in the number of actual tweets on screen, even if
one is able to manage with a small font size. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg.
While features like increased control over things like font size and screen brightness sound good in theory,
they tend to amount to window dressing at best, as most computers and browsers offer these options
anyway. Still, moves like these are typical of the sort of things designers focus on when they think about
accessibility, and illustrate the extent to which accessibility is treated like an afterthought, rather than a
feature of the main design.
One of the more useful options to decrease visual noise by turning off animations also has issues. Rather
than opening up opportunities for disabled users to take advantage of new features, it turns off live tweet
counts, one of the few new features people are actually excited about, so those who struggle with all those
distractions – like a lot of autistic people – are forced to choose manageable access at the cost of
functionality.
They need to think about issues like the amount of movement or clicks
needed to complete basic tasks