It has been almost 10 months since the showdown pitting the user interfaces of Tweetbot 1.0 and Twitter for iPhone. An update was long due and last week’s milestone update of Tweetbot leaves me with no excuses.
For starters, here is a quick summary of the simplified HIP model used in this showdown:
Touch interactions are assigned a value based on the precision and time required to execute them. Single taps take in average 165 milliseconds, while double taps and swipes take 350ms and 400ms respectively. The single tap is given a nominal value of 1 and will serve as the base unit of other interactions. For instance, assigning the value of 2 to a swipe means that it’s twice harder to execute than a single tap.
A task is a chain of user interactions with an end goal. The effort required to achieve a certain task equals the sum of the individual values of each interaction involved. The lower the sum, the more efficient the interface.
Typing time is zeroed out.
Only the shortest routes were used (lowest scores).
For long-time readers, here is what new:
User flow is taken into account this time by adding the interactions required to take the user back to the main timeline in each task.
The interaction scores have been revised since. Swipes and double taps call for twice the effort required by single taps. Triple taps are the most taxing in terms of precision, long presses in term of execution time.
The tasks have been divided into two main groups: basic and advanced.
The new scores used in the test are as follows:
Tap: 1
Double tap: 2
Swipe: 2
Triple tap: 3
Long press: 2.5
Multi-option prompt: 0.5
Jump to the final results if you are short on time, or grab the if you want to sweat the details.
Basic tasks
Tweetbot has clearly the upper-hand even though little has changed since 1.0 as far as these basic tasks go; the redesigned interface of Twitter 4 forces the user to navigate constantly back and forth between the main timeline and individual tweets, resulting in a clunkier experience. For instance, opening a link in the official client and coming back to the timeline takes twice as many taps as the other third part clients. Twitterrific lands very close to Tweetbot but does a better job in terms of consistency and ease of use: all primary tasks can be carried out using only single taps.
Advanced tasks
Tweetbot comes out again a winner, only slightly ahead of Twitterrific. Tapbots’ popover implementation of account switching contrasts heavily with the 2 layer deep navigation required to do the same task in the official client. Twitterrific does direct messages best, despite the 2 penalty points tied to the impossibility of sending a new DM without resorting to the obscure trick of adding a lowercase ‘d’ to the beginning of the tweet.
Verdict
Tweetbot wins. Twitterrific closes in second and Twitter 4 lands third with a significant margin. For comparison purposes, I recalculated the score using the same uncalibrated values of the previous showdown (including Twitterrific this time). Of the three, only the official client regressed. A better user experience for first-time users you say?
Amidst the turmoil following Twitter’s recent announcements concerning third party applications, Tweetbot, the long awaited Twitter client from Tapbots is finally out for iPhone and iPod Touch. The overwhelmingly positive user feedback is a clear sign that Tapbots got it right again.
To see if Tweetbot lives up to the hype, I tried to pit it against the official client using a GOMS-inspired, oversimplified human information processing model (HIP) on a set of frequent and less frequent tasks we perform on Twitter.
Tweet options displayed after a single tap.
The Rules
Before jumping in, let me briefly explain some of the concepts used in this model:
An interaction occurs between the user and the interface, such as a tap or a swipe. Each interaction is assigned a value based on the time required to execute it. For the sake of simplicity, I gave the single tap a nominal value of 1 then used it as a base unit to make an educated guess for other interactions.
A task is any set of actions sharing the same end goal. There may be one or more set of interactions to carry out the same task. I considered the time required to achieve a given task to be equal to the sum of the individual values of each interaction involved. The lower the sum, the more efficient the interface.
Unless stated otherwise, typing time was zeroed out.
When two or more methods of achieving a given task are possible, only the most efficient one is used in the comparison. The impact on the overall workflow is also taken into account.
Only the default behavior of the triple tap is taken into consideration for Tweetbot.
The values assigned to each interaction are as follows:
Tap: 1
Double tap: 1.5
Swipe: 1.5
Triple tap: 2
Long tap: 2
Thinking time was assigned a value of 0.5, and will be referred to as MOS (multi-option selection) in the tests. For simplification purposes, the number of options was not taken into account, nor was the habit factor.
Short on time? Fast forward to the
Round 1: Basic Tasks
We’ll start by having a look at how efficiently the two clients handle basic tasks such as tweeting and replying:
Task
Tweetbot
Twitter App
No hashtags or @ signs.
No other users mentioned in the original tweet
The tap to get to the Messages view is zeroed out
Sending a tweet (1)
2
2
Replying(1)(2)
3
4
Native Retweeting
4
4.5
Sending an initial DM(3)
6.5
5.5
Opening a link
1.5
2
Outcome: Draw
The two clients are equally efficient when it comes to tweeting and retweeting. Tweetbot cleverly handles single replies and links thanks to double and triple taps, while the official client makes sending initial direct messages significantly less cumbersome.
Sending a direct message.
Round 2: Hashtags, Mentions & Group Replies
Let’s now spice up the comparison with some hashtags and @ mentions:
Task
Tweetbot
Twitter App
Where the user takes part
Multi-mention tweet
Composing a tweet with #(x1) and @(x1)
7
4
Composing a tweet with #(x3) and @(x2)
15
7
Viewing conversations(1)
1.5
2
Replying all (MMT) (2)
4.5
5
Replying single (MMT) (2)
4.5
4
Outcome: Twitter for iPhone wins!
Thanks to shortcuts, the official Twitter client trumps Tweetbot when it comes composing tweets containing hashtags and @ symbols. Theoretically, the two clients handle multi-mention replies with almost equal efficiency. Practically, Twitter's less intrusive solution gives it the upper hand.
Replying a tweet with multiple @ mentions.
Round 3: User Actions & Lists
Now for the less frequent tasks:
Task
Tweetbot
Twitter App
Following / Unfollowing a user
3.5
5
Reporting a user for spam
5
8
Translating a tweet
4.5
5
Adding a tweet to Favorites
2.5
3
Deleting a tweet
3.5
4
Switching timelines
2.5
3
Outcome: Tweetbot wins!
The official client didn't stand a chance here; Tweetbot’s long tap is a godsend.
Following a user.
Wrapping up
Task
Tweetbot
Twitter app
Sending a tweet
2
2
Replying
3
4
Native Retweeting
4
4.5
Sending an initial DM
6.5
5.5
Opening a link
1.5
2
Composing a tweet with #(x1) and @(x1)
7
4
Composing a tweet with #(x3) and @(x2)
15
7
>Viewing conversations
1.5
2
Replying All (MMT)
4.5
5
Replying single (MMT)
4.5
4
Following / Unfollowing a user
3.5
5
Reporting a user for spam
5
8
Translating a tweet
4.5
5
Adding a tweet to Favorites
2.5
3
Deleting a tweet
3.5
4
Switching timelines
2.5
3
Total
71
68
The relatively awkward, albeit native, method of keying hashtags and @ signs in Tweetbot skews the results in favor of Twitter for iPhone. Weren't it for the 6th and 7th tasks, the third party client would have come out a clear winner with a score of 49 to 57.
Before jumping to quick conclusions, let's gauge the relevance of these tests based on the way we use Twitter in reality.
suggest that a big majority of users on the social platform are silent; unless you are a news agency, a celebrity or a spam bot, you are more likely to be reading tweets (passive) than actually tweeting or sending direct messages (active). As a result, the overall experience is deeply affected by our passive use, a point that the tests above completely eschewed in favor of purely active use scenarios.
In-app notifications in Tweetbot.
Notably, Tweetbot shines in some areas that would be hard to assess using the HIP model above. Save for the occasional tweet, reply or DM, we spend most of the time on Twitter wading through hundreds of tweets and swapping accounts and lists. Few Twitter clients address these areas as cleverly as Tapbots did:
The number of new tweets (since the last refresh) is displayed in a unobtrusive blue bar in the timeline. This may seem gimmicky at first, but it turns out to be a huge time saver; it provides a visual clue of where to start reading rather than leaving it up to the user to figure that out, often going over few tweets more than once in the process. I always thought that unread badges are overkill for a Twitter client, and this seems to be a perfect solution.
Single swiping a tweet displays related tweets in a dedicated conversation view, even if the user is not taking part in them. As far as I know, there is no way to do that in the official client. Again, this doesn’t sound very useful at first, until you find yourself using it more than what you might have imagined.
Even though the obsessive customization may not appeal to everyone, the concepts underlying it are rock-solid and would pay off on the long run as users get used to it.
In a Nutshell
For a 1.0 release, Tweetbot is doing an astounding job, especially when considering the saturated and volatile market of Twitter third party clients. Even though there is still room for improvement in certain areas, Tweetbot for iPhone has got what it takes to dethrone the official client, and then some.
