Twitter had rolled out audio tweets for iOS earlier in June this year and is presently looking to take voice use to another feature on the platform – direct messages or DMs as they are popularly known. Twitter is testing the utilization of voice messages for DMs. Twitter’s product administrator for direct messages, Alex Ackerman-Greenberg told the Verge that the platform will test this component soon and Brazil will be the first nation to be include for the test.
Ackerman-Greenberg’s message makes reference to that twitter knows people want more options for how they express themselves in conversations on Twitter both privately and publicly. As Like the voice tweets, voice messages will have a basic, simple interface that include only a play and pause button. The sender’s avatar, or profile picture, will pulsate as the message plays out.
The Verge reports that the product team planned an in-line recording experience to make it easier to send these messages as a part of the regular conversation flow so it feels different from the as the current sound tweets interface. There is also a report message option in case someone’s decides to miss-use voice DMs. Since this audio clip is private, the chance of somebody attempting to do that is highly certain. Twitter received quite a bit of flack after they announced audio tweets because they failed to factor in accessibility.
Design chief Dantley Davis said in an interview the Protocol that they delivered something that should not have been sent without this conversation occurring. Davis added that they now had a full-time accessibility team within product development that included engineers and designers. Davis mentioned that they have also changed their development process so as acessability is considered as right from the time features are being conceptualized. Facebook and Instagram already allow voice messages in DMs, so Twitter following to this same pattern isn’t unexpected.
