Twitter is launching a redesign of its iOS, Android, TweetDeck and Twitter Lite apps. The redesign is intended to make the service “feel lighter, faster, and easier to use” and features a number of changes that mean an update is pending for twitter.com too.

As with any redesign, there’s some good, some bad, and some probably-ok-once-we-get-used-to-it.

The new design is expected to start appearing worldwide over the coming days and weeks, although much of the update seems to be aimed at bringing iOS in line with Android meaning iOS users will likely notice the changes first.

Like Twitter for Android, Twitter for iOS now puts all your settings, profile, and access to additional accounts in one place, keeping the main UI focussed on the primary functions. Links now open in Safari viewer, so if you’re signed in to other services, your login will be carried over.

iOS and Android versions now update live, so you can see your retweets, likes, and replies ticking up without refreshing.
Ads by

Typography has been refined across the board for greater consistency and bolder headlines. There are also improved accessibility options, including increased color contrast.

Spectral is the newest addition to Google’s font library. Designed by Production Type, the team behind great fonts such as Gemeli, or Cogito, Spectral is a beautiful screen-first font.

Based in Paris, Production Type is a digital type design agency that’s involved with online distribution of retail fonts, but it also does custom typeface work in industrial, luxury and media sectors. Commissioned by Google to design a type for immersive reading, Production Type delivered Spectral.

Spectral, the Font for Documents

The font was created for long, distraction free reads. Therefore, Product Type tried to keep the font as simple as possible. Still, they’ve managed to design lettering that looks distinct from similar serifs. And while it’s intended to be a functional font, it’s also elegant. It’s a great choice if you want to add some personality to documents, but without going too far.

One of the most oft-repeated criticisms of any design is that it’s “poor user experience”. UX is set up as the ultimate achievement for any design project. But is this an over-simplification of the designer’s role? Should everything be about user experience?

To paraphrase Leonard Hofstadter: “UX is a ‘smart decision’; it is like a bran muffin—a thing that you’re choosing because it is good for you…But sometimes, you want things in your design to be a Cinnabon, you know? A strawberry Pop Tart. Something you’re excited about even though it could give you diabetes”.

Today I’ve put together a list of sites that are rarely credited with good user experience, but that are still praise-worthy despite—or perhaps because of—that fact. We can admire their originality, their interactions, and their creative direction.

1. Scrolling: parallax, long and infinite

While scrolling, in all its hypostases, underlies a bunch of today’s websites—especially those that bring to life a storytelling experience—UX gurus find this technique “mauvais ton”. They consider it bad for many reasons:

    users may not know what to do when first they stumble upon such a site;
    users can feel confused and frustrated;
    users often become bored after several minutes of constant moving;
    there is no way out, whatsoever;
    the navigation is not transparent and habitual;
    relatively bad site performance;
    in some cases, it does not work in mobile devices;
    etc.

However, we still eagerly click on a website that promises to take us on a long exciting adventure. Does the “comfort zone” matter? When all you need to do is to toy with a mouse scroll wheel and amuse yourself with some inventive tricks.

Every week users submit a lot of interesting stuff on our sister site Webdesigner News, highlighting great content from around the web that can be of interest to web designers.

The best way to keep track of all the great stories and news being posted is simply to check out the Webdesigner News site, however, in case you missed some here’s a quick and useful compilation of the most popular designer news that we curated from the past week.

Note that this is only a very small selection of the links that were posted, so don’t miss out and subscribe to our newsletter and follow the site daily for all the news.