Twitter launches new feature allowing retweets with GIF, photos, and video

In a press statement the company explained the challenges it had to address while designing the new  feature. Twitter acknowledged there could be a problem for users to understand all the content in a Retweet with media given it could appear a little cluttered.

“During the first usability test, we found it was challenging for people to quickly understand all the content in a Retweet with media. This was due to the layout; two large Tweets stacked on top of each other.” it said.

“By expanding the places where you can use videos, GIFs and photos, we’re also giving marketers more opportunity to add vibrancy to the way they talk to people on Twitter and add new layers to the personas they’ve built on the platform,” Sarah Personette, VP of Twitter Client Solutions said in a statement.

Right now if a user retweets a tweet with comment, they can only add text. But the new feature will make retweets more interactive given that users will be able to add memes via GIFs to their replies.

Check out the tweets on this

https://t.co/OtEWgJgWxV pic.twitter.com/nfhUBKaSCa

— Twitter India (@TwitterIndia) May 7, 2019

The wait is over 👇😘 https://t.co/3W0witaZtg pic.twitter.com/v7J6WgRioD

— Twitter (@Twitter) May 6, 2019

The final design, according to Twitter has a more clear visual hierarchy.  There’s an a condensed inner tweet, featuring an avatar to give more context to the user to differentiate who is saying what.

There’s a a simple box container for easy interactions as well. Twitter will be hoping this new feature will increase multimedia based interactions on the platform.