Twitter gets thumbs down from users for moving navigation bar to bottom

Twitter’s decision to move navigation bar from the top to bottom is receiving flak from its Android users.

Apart from the location change, the bar looks and works very much the same as it did before with the same four primary tabs in effect -- Home, Search/Explore, Notifications and Messages. (AP)

Twitter has rolled out an important design change for Android users. The micro-blogging platform has now shifted the location of its navigation bar from the top to bottom of the app interface.

The change is aimed at making the application more accessible and to enable quicker navigation between different tabs of the app. "We're launching a new bottom navigation bar on Twitter for Android. With this update, you'll be able to quickly navigate between all of your tabs with ease!" Twitter Support tweeted on Saturday.

The bottom bar, however would not allow users to swipe from one tab to the next, but they would have to click on a tab to access it. The update also incorporates minor updates like the line that used to denote which tab a user is on, has been removed but the tab icon would still be highlighted in the same way and colour as it was before.

Apart from the location change, the bar looks and works very much the same as it did before with the same four primary tabs in effect -- Home, Search/Explore, Notifications and Messages.

Twitter is rolling out this update from the server side this time instead of an app update through Google Play Store.

We're launching a new bottom navigation bar on Twitter for Android. With this update, you'll be able to quickly navigate between all of your tabs with ease!

— Twitter Support (@TwitterSupport) July 12, 2018

Backlash from users
One of the biggest problems with Twitter's redesign is that it doesn't go well with the modern Android phones which already have on-screen navigation buttons. With more phones coming with 18:9 aspect ratio, Twitter's new navigation bar makes it slightly difficult to use.

Here's how the new Twitter UI on Android looks (Kul Bhushan)

Here's how the new Twitter UI on Android looks (Kul Bhushan)

A number of users have already expressed their unhappiness over the new redesign. From calling it "the worst thing ever" to "awful", here's what users had to say.

@Twitter the new navigation bar is awful. Please give a option to select top or down according to user preference.

— Thebongboy (@BongBlueBoy) July 14, 2018

Dear @Twitter can you please add the option to have the navigation in the top instead of the bottom.. #thankyou

— Tomas Norre Mikkelsen (@tomasnorre) July 14, 2018

@Twitter please, put our navigation bar where it belongs at the top. It was a lot easier at the top

— Kele (@SoleilLevantK) July 14, 2018

Dear Twitter, new navigation bar sucks balls hugely.

Looks messy feels unnatural still have header at top so what's the point who's behind such madness #somemenjustwanttowatchtheworldburn pic.twitter.com/iMirhda0fX

— Lee James (@LeeJames141) July 14, 2018

@Twitter can you put the navigation buttons back up in the android app? Having them at the bottom is super annoying!

— Páride (@paride5745) July 14, 2018

@TwitterSupport @Twitter Why have you moved the navigation bar?

It's a terrible concept.. can their be an option to.put it back...

— little villan (@LittleVillan71) July 14, 2018

(with inputs from IANS)