Design News Roundup 🌎

If Apple vs Figma wasn’t enough last issue, this time we’ve got Medium vs Twitter as the 280-character tweet limit is no more (sort of). With that, the latest on the Prototypr blog delves into the deceptive design patterns of social media apps, and the outcry against Instagram’s ‘Immersive feed’.

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Twitter’s ‘Notes’: Goodbye Medium? →
Reminiscent of how they ‘absorbed’ Clubhouse with Twitter Spaces, Twitter's newest feature, ‘Notes’ looks like it might do the same to publishing.
With Notes, you can waffle to your heart’s content without the usual 280-character limit. As for the likes of Medium and SubStack, it’s probably feeling a little toasty around their derrières. 🔥

The ‘Search-Bait’ Design Pattern →
Despite the similarities between Twitter and Medium, one glaring difference is the search and discovery experience. Social media apps these days adopt a pattern that merges the search bar into an ‘explore’ page. It can leave you feeling like you went to the supermarket for milk and came out with a Christmas candle, multipack of M&Ms, and a novelty pair of slippers — all very nice, but not what you went there for in the first place. Instagram is definitely the worst offender.

Instagram’s Immersive Feed is a Pig Trough →
Speaking of Instagram, just as I was getting the hang of Sunday selfies and algorithms, Instagram pulled the ol’ switcheroo on us, and now my feed looks more like a cross between TikTok and the QVC network. Rob Diaz sums up what’s going on with their new ‘Immersive Feed’ — it doesn’t look quite as healthy as the rebrand did.

Here’s one you might have missed:

All those Instagram pigs might have you hungry for…a hamburger footer!

Hamburger Footer: Reaching the Bottom of Infinite Scroll: If like me, you feel regular frustration (and potential onset repetitive strain injury) from having to scroll aaall the way to the bottom of a webpage to get to the footer navigation, Graeme has some solutions for you. Take inspo from Dribbble’s ‘Load More’ button, Airbnb’s ‘Sticky Footer’, or Etsy’s old-school pagination.

My lizard brain is no match for infinite scroll. Alex Ellis

Abstract image of hamburger menu with a real hamburger being clicked

Tweet All About It 🐦

A curation of some of the latest products and designers featured over on our Twitter.

Make Way Grid Effect: A neat little grid interaction from Manoela Ilic where adjoining items make way to a selected one that expands.
How to make absolutely any app look like a macOS app 🤓: Creating a more “seamless” experience for our users by employing similar design conventions.
Product research made easy with Ballpark: A brand new product from the Marvel App team - super fast async product research for Marvel and Figma prototypes, designs and copy.
More than ticking boxes - accessibility in design: Building accessible digital products way beyond a ‘compliance checklist’ to ensure max impact, by Cat Noone.