“What happened to my Twitter background!?” With the new Twitter, design improvements have been made to the interface at the expense of backgrounds having a lot less space for information and branding and it is time to revise what we have said in the past about optimizing Twitter backgrounds. Twitter backgrounds offer any user to integrate their various media properties into a cohesive brand. Sometimes, however, the background design will go completely unoticed:
1. The new Twitter interface has a feature that opens up each users profile in the sidebar causing you to not go to their full profile unless you click on it.
2. If the viewer is using a mobile device they are most likely using an application and will not see the background image. Same with desktop applications.
But you still have an opportunity to show that you care about any space you can get by using the available space to the fullest.
Twitter’s new interface width is 1040 pixels. That means 40 pixels are always visible on the sides if the window is sized down completely.
Use between 40-200 pixels for the left sidebar. Depending on the screen resolution and monitor size of the viewer, more or less of the side bar on either side will show.
Here is a helpful breakdown:
(100%*) Always Visible: 40px on each side
(72.7%*) of Modern Computers: 108px on each side (Requires about 1280x800px Screen Resolution or Higher)
(28.8%*) of Modern Computers: 200px on each side (Requires 1440x900px Screen Resolution or Higher)
(4.6%*) of Modern Computers: 312px on each side (Requires 1920×1080 Screen Resolution)
Should I use the right sidebar area to show information?
If we use the information captured from various studies on viewing habits and eye tracking software we see that, “People spent more than twice as much time looking at the left side of the page as they did the right. Our study used a 1,024×768 monitor. With a bigger monitor, we might expect the viewing pattern to shift slightly to the right, simply because there would a wider space to look at.
However, the general pattern would be the same.” Some imagery or supplementary information can be used, but it would be best to stick all the important content on the left side.
Very useful information, Patrick, especially the numbers and percentages of users.
Do you think there’s a chance that perhaps Twitter wanted to give its users less chance to brand their profile pages? Or was it purely usability and functionality they had in mind?
Thank you Slobodan. Yes, I believe it is a case of form following function
This is awesome, Patrick! I’ve been meaning to whip up a new Twitter background for a while now, when I finally get around to doing it this article will be a great reference!
Great Tucker! Glad it was helpful.
Wow! Nice info on the eye patterns and where the most “marketable” space is. Never knew this happened or that it could be worked with. Thanks Patrick!
Thank you Anthony! Yes, there is lots of great statistics using eye tracking software.