Twitter announced a new version launch today that has a new simplified design as well as the addition of four new tabs to help users stay in touch with their interests more easily.
Twitter’s blog details the changes users can expect and offers this video as a tutorial-cum-preview:
The four new tabs that you can start planning to get acquainted with are Home, Connect, Discover, Me, and Tweet, which will look like this:
You’ll notice that the stream of Tweets has been swapped to the right side of your screen with the left side now the location of trending topics, suggestions on people to follow and your own profile details (your bio, tweets, and followers). The biggest change in the re-design seems to be the Discover tab, which appears to consolidate the Who To Follow, Find Friends and Browse Interests actions into one page. Additionally, the Discover tab will also link users to stories via tweets where you can preview stories from news sources, watch videos within the tweet, and follow tweets related to the story.
While most people typically groan at any site’s redesign (I distinctly recall several tweets of that variety during Twitter’s last redesign, which wasn’t all that long ago), this new concept looks to be a lot more streamlined and to be an actual improvement to Twitter’s navigation (I reserve the right to be mistaken on this).
Additional information can be found by following the #letsfly trend that Twitter has initiated where users can find tips on how to navigate the new interface. While not available on Twitter’s site just yet, the redesigned version is immediately available through mobile.twitter.com, Twitter for iPhone, and Twitter for Android. If you’ve already updated your Twitter app on your phone, let us know what you think? How easy has the adjustment been for you?