Throughout the semester I will rapid sketch wireframes of current sharing interfaces. The goal and intent is to get a more intimate understand of how the interactions work. I’m still in debate and discussion if this is an interpretation or a review.
I looked at the current Facebook Share interface and the Twitter interfaces. A friend of mine is in an AB test for a new share interface and Twitter should be rolling something out to me any second now. But, there is no wait in research, so I sketched them out anyway.
Twitter and Facebook both ask a question of their social journalist (their user). Doing this prompts action. Both of their action buttons are also simple, short words with a clickable button. By “clickable” I mean they are geographically placed at the bottom right of the text field which follows Western reading habits (left to right) and visual vertical hierarchy (top to bottom).let me
What’s on your mind?
and
What’s happening?
Facebook Share
Facebook initially hides buttons that may complicate the layout and distract the user. It seems their ultimate goal is to simply get their social journalist to click in the box.
Facebook @mentions
When the social journalist types the @ symbol, links (events, pages, names) from their network filter down to ultimately build the richness of the Facebook experience. However, I wonder if there is a way Facebook can suggest links so the user does not have to type the “@” symbol.
Facebook post
Once shared, the post then appears at the top of the news feed may it be top news or top posts. The buttons that were initially hidden remain visible but the text field shrinks back to one line.
Facebook Attachments
Many of the interactions across photos, videos, links and events are similar. I think it’s possible to create one attachment button. It’s possible Facebook explored this avenue already and separate choices were more explicit and therefor better for their users overall.
Facebook Attachments
I think Facebook link attachments could be removed all together and should be something that automatically happens when any link is inserted.
Twitter Sharing
Twitter takes more liberty with space and asks their prompt question above the text field. There is less activity on a Twitter stream so it is less necessary to tie up all text and images into small spaces. The counter turns to red when 9 characters are left before surpassing the limit.
Twitter @ Mentions
Twitter may have popularly introduced the @mention behavior but Facebook’s dropdown filter is an overall easier to user experience. It’s often quite difficult to remember someone’s username on Twitter versus a friend’s actual name on Facebook. However, in not using a filter down technique, Twitter gives their users more creative freedom to link outside their network and create their own hash tags.