A2: Frit ter

23 Sep 2022

Concept 1 [Adjustment]

Users have published sensitive content without flagging their Tweets – which resulted in users like Chiara (my interviewee from A1) retaining negative mental images with graphic violence (read her story here on unflagged senstiive posts during BLM). There’s a downside for posters as well - when other users report their Tweets, or if Twitter finds out another way, their whole account usually ends up getting flagged with: “Caution: This profile may include potentially sensitive content.” These flagged accounts can then only have their overall Tweets pushed to a minority of all timelines: those that explicitly allowed for sensitive content, an option in Twitter’s Settings & Preferences.

The Problem: Twitter users posting sensitive content are not easily able to find a way to flag their content at the time of posting. Therefore, when users are reported - their entire accounts get banned, and other users are exposed to sensitive content without any warning.

Purpose: Easily self-flag sensitive content with accessible and visible Flag Icon Shortcut, without having to navigate to “Edit” each and every photo/video (shown below in sketch).

Concept Name: Flag Icon Shortcut

Operational Principle: When posting sensitive photos or videos, Fritter users press the Flag Icon Shortcut on the icon of their photo/video.

Sketch: Alt

Concept 2 [Adoption]

Problem: Popular Tweets often get congested with nested replies: other users reply with a Tweet, to which other users specifically reply to the reply, and the list can go on. When navigating from the original Tweet, users can read all replies by scrolling down - but users cannot read the replies to the replies without navigating out of the original discussion board. Thus, such nested replies can become convoluted and messy for users who may simply want to preview nested replies, as they could on similarly nested Reddit discussion threads.

Concept Name: Collapsible Threads

Purpose: Organize view of convoluted Fritter threads and read nested replies without navigating off of original Freet discussion thread.

Operational Principle: When users want to show or hide replies of a Freet within a thread, they tap the the icon with “Show Replies” or “Hide Replies” accordingly.

Sketch: Alt

Concept 3 [Adjustment]

Problem: Twitter has a way to bookmark Tweets, but it’s not as obvious. You have to navigate to the “Share” icon, and then press the “Add to Bookmarks” button to save a Tweet.

But on other popular social media apps - like Instagram and TikTok, it’s easy for users to save posts for later. An explicit way to bookmark on Twitter is useful as to avoid outer interactions in attempts to bookmark Tweets for later (.e.g., Melania Trump’s shady liking of a Tweet making fun of her husband).

Concept Name: Bookmark Icon

Purpose: Increasing accessibility and reprioritizing icons to allow users to quickly bookmark a Freet.

Operational Principle: When Fritter users want to bookmark a Freet, they tap on the “Bookmark Icon,” and the Freet will be saved. When they want to un-bookmark a Freet, they re-tap on it, and it will be removed from their bookmarks.

Sketch: Alt

~ after a storm of two brains ~

Concept 4 [Adjustment]

Problem: Users may send Tweets to either “Public” or “Circle” (close friends) audience lists, but no in-between. There’s no way for users to specifically target posts to certain people without editing and re-editing the “Close Friends” list each time - which defeats the purpose of a Tweet’s longevity for a specified audience’s overall timeline view of the user’s Tweets.

Concept Name: Audience Lists

Purpose: Allow for various groups of audience lists. Allows for variety of specified audiences for Freets and for longevity of timelines with certain audiences, minimalizing user need to edit and re-edit audience lists.

Operational Principle: When Fritter users post, they may choose who can interact with their Freet by choosing their Audience List. If they want to post to a specific group of people, they may create a new Audience List and/or edit users who can interact with their Freets.

Sketch: Alt

Concept 5 [Adoption]

Problem: When Twitter users incorporate links on their Tweets, an automatic 24-character count for each link is added to the Tweet.

And Twitter only allows for a sleek embed when users post one link:

But when multiple links are included in the post, each of the URL’s are displayed:

So if users post multiple links, they are unable to avoid character counts and Tweets crowded with links; if Twitter adopted the concept of hyperlinks, which are available on this page right here (meta, right?), users would be able to save character counts and make their Tweets more easily readable.

Concept Name: Hyperlinks

Purpose: Allow users to post sleek links within a Freet’s reference phrases or words, without counting towards character count or displaying URLs.

Operational Principle: When users want to link words in a Freet to a outer reference, they may highlight the phrases and tap on the “Link” icon. When they do so, they may enter the link to create a hyperlink. When users viewing the Freet clicks on a hyperlink, they are able to navigate to the link (with a disclaimer page beforehand to prioritize Fritter’s safety + provide further information of the hyperlink).

Sketch: Alt

Concept 6 [Invention]

Problem: With the spread of misinformation on Twitter, there’s no integrated design to check whether or not the average user has factual claims; even with Tweets that go viral, misinformation spreads easily with no way of checking sources or endorsements from qualified experts on topics.

Concept Name: Citations (with Endorsements)

Purpose: Allow Fritter users to cite their sources on their Freets to back up their claims. [Later on: for Freets going viral (above 100k retweets): allow other users with “Expert” status in relevant fields of Freets to endorse user citations, or otherwise reject their validity - which will be displayed.]

Operational Principle: When users want to back up statements within their Freets with outer sources, they may do so by pressing the “Quotations Icon” (shown below) and then add citations to links.

Sketch: Alt