Responding to negative feedback from users, Twitter has released an update to its iOS app removing the QuickBar feature. Originally debuted earlier this month, the QuickBar was intended to help users discover content outside of their normal follower channels by displaying popular trending topics at the top of the timeline.
The new feature prompted a huge negative response almost immediately after its release, however, with many calling it offensive and adopting the term “dickbar” as a euphemism to describe their feelings about it.
In a blog posting today, Twitter Creative Director Doug Bowman noted that the QuickBar was a new feature the company was experimenting with and that it was “originally conceived to help users discover what’s happening in the broader world beyond people they already follow.” Bowman explains that the team had considered using the bar as a means for in-app notifications of new activity such as DMs and mentions and that the goal was to connect users “to what’s most meaningful to them.” Despite this, however, Bowman indicates that the company has decided to remove the feature rather than continuing to develop it in its current form, stating that “after testing a feature and evaluating its merits, if we learn it doesn’t improve the user experience or serve our mission, we’ll remove that feature.” He goes on to explain that Twitter still feels there are benefits to improving user awareness beyond their own timeline and that the QuickBar showed “incredibly high usage metrics” however the company will be looking at other ways to provide this with a better user experience.
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