Twitter Launches "twttr" To The First Group Of Testers For Experimenting New Ideas

Twitter has rolled out its new prototype app to the first tester group. The prototype app is dubbed “twttr” as a reminder to Twitter’s original name and was first unveiled in January during CES. The company has created this app as a space for experimenting with new ideas, getting feedback from testers based on which it will develop new features.

twttr will first focus on testing new conversation designs. According to the social network, replies will present in a different format that looks like chats, sharing options, engagements, and other tweet details will be hidden with the aim at a simpler appearance. Most importantly, different sorts of replies will have different colors to distinguish between the poster and others.

In the future, Twitter wants to test other changes in the app too like when it tested ideas related to icebreakers and status update fields.

Just a couple of thousands of Japanese and English speakers can access to the app, where they have to follow Twitter's rule. Plus, they are not under NDA so they can freely discuss their experience with the tests.

In the next few days, chosen testers will receive an invite via emails attached with a link that they must click on to confirm their participation and wait for another email will come from Apple’s TestFlight.

Then, testers can download and use twttr instead of current Twitter. They can talk about the new look with #LetsHaveAConvo hashtag or submit feedbacks via an online form.

For years, Twitter has been trying to improve user conversations on its network, including the lengthy thread that are hard to visually follow and the abuse issue. The company has updated its process for reporting tweets as well as added a “hide tweet” button.

While the prototype app doesn’t look to solve the abuse problem immediately, redesigned conversations may help a bit in highlighting comments which contribute rather than detract. Mainly, twttr will concentrate on taking user feedback into account for making product changes.

Sara Haider, director of product management at Twitter, said in January:

The company informed testers that twttr will be “a work in progress,” and that there will be things they’re not familiar with, some new things may pop up while some may disappear.