We had our first IRISS Asks session on Twitter on Friday November 9th. IRISS Asks is where we ‘ask’ a social services/social care related question on Twitter in order to generate a discussion around the topic (hashtag: #irissasks). Generally it went well, but it kicked off an interesting internal discussion about the gradient of Twitter’s learning curve for new users.
It’s well known that Twitter can be a confusing place for the uninitiated, as this spoof Jack Nicholson account nicely demonstrates (reads from bottom up):
Although Twitter has an extensive Help Center, with a range of thorough guides, the sheer amount of information on there can itself be off-putting. Ideally, it’d be great if Twitter could rethink its onboarding of new users and do a better job of educating them about things like hashtags and replies at the point they first sign on.
Oh, and if you’ve ever been caught out by Twitter’s @reply system then don’t worry, you’re in good company. It seems Twitter’s latest addition to its board of directors Peter Chernin (the man who killed oversaw MySpace for News Corp.) accidentally formatted the tweet announcing his appointment as a reply to Twitter’s own official profile, meaning that only those of his followers who also happen to follow the official Twitter account would get to see the announcement:
@twitter I’ve been a long-time user of twitter for news and information. Happy to be joining board of this very exciting company.