This article was published on April 1, 2016

What Twitter’s jumping heart taught me about emotional impact


What Twitter’s jumping heart taught me about emotional impact

Twitter marked its tenth birthday last week by giving us all something fun – a delightful little animation when you ‘liked’ a tweet. As soon as the big day was gone, so was the animation. And I want it back permanently.

Every time I ‘liked’ a tweet that day it felt like a little burst of happiness. Now we’re back to the normal, more muted animation and it feels like the come-down after an epic party.

I was hoping Twitter’s new heart animation was a birthday gift to us all, but it was not to be, and Twitter feels that little bit less fun. Sure the normal animation is ‘fun’ but the jumping heart was more fun and filled me with just that little bit more delight each time I clicked or tapped it.

Back to normal

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Am I being silly? A little. Was there a ‘novelty’ factor at play here? Maybe. Are there more important things in the world? Yes, there most definitely are. But still, my reaction to that tiny change for a single day hammers home how changes to little things like animations can affect your emotional reaction to a product.

If you’re a developer, think about whether you could be delighting your users just that little bit more with just a subtle change to your interface.

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