Inside Windows Phone Apps – Twitter

Application:

Twitter for Windows Phone

Interviewee:

Rhon Manlapaz, UX Designer

About the team:

Identitymine, Twitter, inc., Microsoft Corp.
(Jaime Rodriguez-PM, Chad Roberts-UX Lead)

Can you introduce the app?

Twitter for Windows Phone® was part of our launch app partners. We worked closely with Twitter to ensure core functionality was present and that it was tightly integrated with the Metro design experience.

Can you tell us a little bit about yourself?

I grew up in Los Angeles, CA then relocated up to Seattle in 2008. I like to cook (and eat), run marathons (well I wouldn’t call it running, more like a brisk jog), sketch, and geek out on technology.

What led you into design?

In my circle I was always the go-to person for designing flyers, posters, t-shirts, and in short, what was a hobby developed into a career.

What led you to focus on mobile?

Previously I was working in the film industry working on digital content for the studios in Hollywood. The primary focus was DVD+BluRay content design (menus, commentary, behind the scenes, games, opening titles). I gravitated towards interaction design projects and developed a strong interest in this field.

Do you design for any other platforms? Have you designed/developed for any other platforms? How does the experience with WP7 compare?

Currently this is the only platform that I design for. In the past, on other platforms – like DVD+BluRay – the user experience varied visually as each movie release carried its own branding. Architecturally some studios wanted consistency and some wanted unique/different experiences for each release. With Windows Phone there were core principles established that every feature aligned to. Being able to unify and agree that the end user is king has been amazing.

There are some big differences when designing for mobile, what do you think this application does well?

The Twitter app uses our panorama view well. For example, when you type a search for ‘Pizza’ we show an all-up view of tweets that contain the word pizza, individuals nearby that are tweeting about pizza, people and businesses that are pizza-related, as well as places/destinations. In this view we are able to give you the world of pizza through the wide and vast Twitter lens.

Design influences and enables behaviour, what do you think this application (or metro) achieves?

By aligning Twitter with our Metro design principles we have an app that feels like it is supported by the platform. It provides consistency for the user so that they can successfully complete a task even if it’s their first time launching the app.

Can you take us through how you create a panorama, with any hints and tips?

Panoramas were designed as an exploratory view of a given app. They are also best used when surfacing information that is not possible with a single list view. An example of this in the Twitter app is the search results. We show a view of your search query as an all up view of this search. In this panorama view you get an aggregated view of related tweets, local tweets, people, and places.

What do you think of the ability to dynamically change the Panorama background image with animation? Is this an example of good/bad design?

Does this add value to the user’s experience? Will this animation make it difficult to read the content on top of it? I believe there a lot of ways to add delight to the user experience but it shouldn’t get in the way of a user completing their task.

If you were to create a new panorama for the same application, would you do anything differently and why?

I wanted to have a map that gave me a heat signature of tweets nearby that were relevant to my search. Typing “pizza” might display a cluster of tweets near the convention center… whoa there is a pizza convention today! Something relevant and magical (yes pizza is magical… all food groups can be represented in one slice!)

Is having design guidelines a good thing? How do you find working with these?

Design guidelines are always a good thing! As a studio we develop a set of principles for each area before any design work is started. These principles help unify the team behind specific goals for our users. It’s easy to deviate from a goal throughout the life a project. Principles help keep the team focused and aligned so that our user goals are met.

Do you think there is enough design differentiation between applications?

There is a lot of room/flexibility within our design language to differentiate. It’s the principles which act as a form of guidelines that we recommend designers and developers align to. Visually it is wide open for designers to create branded experiences.

Please give a design tip for WP7

Create experiences that add value to the user. Your app experience (task completion) can be a strong differentiator these days.

Can you tell us which is your favourite app in the Windows Phone marketplace currently?

The foursquare app is my favourite application. They are able to create a branded experience that is unique to foursquare and feels very unique to Windows Phone.