I used to think exactly this - whatever Twitter has that makes it so popular, it can’t be its dumpster fire UI. But in the last year I finally got into it and it became a go-to place for me at certain times of day to get a kind of social/conversational fix that is just not provided by any other social networks. At some point I realised I no longer find the UI baffling, I seem to sail around it intuitively and enjoy it. Now I think it might be a smart decision not to ‘fix’ it. Yes you are constantly hunting around for the context of things, but I wonder if that’s a big part of what makes it work, makes it more enjoyable for your social brain. It’s that sense of “what’s going on? What’s this thing about?” and then being rewarded, over and over. It’s the closest thing online to a bustling marketplace where you bump into people you see often and overhear interesting things that draw you in.
