To offer its users a richer media experience, Twitter will alter the way in which it showcases photos by featuring uncropped images and improved multi-photo displays.
Although the update in photo-display might seem like a small improvement, it is part of a broader strategy of the microblogging company, aiming to revamp itself from a text-based platform to a more diverse medium.
It is not the first change that the San Francisco-based enterprise did to its interface. In November, Twitter modified the "favorites" (star) function, turning it into "likes" (heart). The users' backlash to the decision was powerful, yet the company keeps going with its overhaul program.
But what does the new tweak mean for users who want to upload photos to Twitter?
First of all, the main website will display the images uncropped. Until the latest tweak went live, only a part of the uploaded picture was visible, and users had to click it to see the image in full. Tinier images and landscape photographs now appear in their native format, with only longer portrait shots getting a little crop.
The former way in which Twitter showed multiple images was to have them all equally sized. With the latest upgrade, Twitter emphasizes the visual impact of the photos and displays one of the four (or more) pictures as a cover photo, larger than the rest.
"While Twitter began as an all-text platform, rich media has become essential to the experience," Akarshan Kumar, product manager at the microblogging company, wrote.
"Starting today, we're making your Twitter.com timeline more immersive by uncropping photos, so you can experience and present them as they were meant to be viewed," Kumar added.
In the previous months, the Twitter development team turned all its engines on to make the platform keep up with the times.
Twitter brought a new way to browse its content in October, when it released the Moments feature.
Moments acts as a summary of the important events happening on Twitter, and users have access to it by tapping on the new lightning bolt. The list updates throughout the day, so you can stay in touch with the unfolding of the events.
