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By Lorant BARLA (April 12, 2020)

Why did I write this article? Because I like the feature implemented by Twitter which allows fast switching between multiple accounts, but at the same time I think the user experience can be improved. Read below about the good, the bad and "the bug".

The good

In our company we started using Twitter to post updates about our products, news from our company and notify our followers about current promotions. Each of our products has its own account and we have one for our company also, so we have to manage 5 accounts in total. Therefore we use Twitter's multiple account toggling. Once all the accounts are added, I can switch the current account from the bottom left corner in the web version of Twitter when I'm using my desktop computer or my laptop and from the top left corner in the mobile application when I'm on my phone (see the image below). I am very happy that this feature exists, but it should not be limited to just 5 accounts.

It is also possible to switch the display settings from the Default background to Dark mode with Dim and Lights Out background both in the web version and in the mobile application. The web version has in plus the ability to change the font size and the color theme (shown in the image below), giving you six nice colors from which you can choose from, selected probably based on which colors look good on both white and dark background. So far so good, I love this also.

The bad

As Twitter writes: "Display settings affect all of your Twitter accounts on this browser. These settings are only visible to you." I have no problem with the fact that these settings are for my viewing pleasure only, but I am sad that I can't set these colors per Twitter account. If I could do this I would color-code my accounts (like in the image below), each account to a different color (currently this is not possible, I took the screenshots by modifying the theme manually after I switched the account). Our brains are wired to remember colors, and this way I would not have to constantly check on which is the current account. I would like this very much.

These colors would be right in my feeds making them more distinct. And with this setting moved at the account level, from wherever I would log in, they would be available the same way I have set them initially. I know, I know, you can say to look at the bottom left corner of your web browser or on the top left corner of your mobile application for the current account. But it is not always so visible, at least not for me (see it below for yourself). I marked the only visual clues with red arrows, to help. Please allow different colors per account.

Twitter has also analytics pages on the analytics.twitter.com subdomain where it is not so obvious which is the current account. While on the account overview page they make it very clear which account you are administering if you move to the secondary pages the information is available just in the top right corner (see below how it changes). These color schemes should be extended to those pages also, next to making it clear in each page title and on the top of each page which is the current account exactly. Please consider this too.

The same is true on the ads pages on the ads.twitter.com subdomain (see below). Plus the black menu they used is not consistent with the rest of the site. I am missing the color schemes already.

I missed also the ability to change the accounts from the analytics.twitter.com and ads.twitter.com subdomains. These subdomains open in a new browser tab loading the information for the current account, so toggling between accounts should be available from the account drop-down on these pages (as I marked below). But, because it does not exists when you want to switch accounts you have to go back to the original browser page, click on the toggle accounts button, switch the account, open the More menu and click on Analytics or Twitter Ads (5 clicks). Not so good user experience, needs improvement.

Another thing which should chanhe. When you switch to another Twitter account, the Home page of the account is displayed both in the web version and the mobile application. In my opinion when toggling between accounts the right user experience would be to land on the same page where you were on the previous account. For example if I was checking out Notifications on one account, there is a high propbability that I switched accounts to see the Notifications from the other account. If I was looking at the analytics in the previous account, it would be logical that I am interested in the same after the switch. The user experience could be improved.

"The bug"

By the way, color themes existed before in Twitter at the account level. The reminiscence of that is still there in the form of an omission (bug) and I accidentally run into it. In one of my older accounts I had the account set to the red color scheme. If I don't put a cover photo for my account, the red color is there on the analytics pages in the web version compared to the blue color of a normal account and to the strip of the cover photo for my other account (see below what I mean). I was surprised to still see it.

The same red color appears in the mobile application when I browse to the profile page of this account while logged in compared to the blue color of a normal account and to the cover photo for my other account (see it and believe it). So the value exists in the user database, just that I can't change it anymore or I can't set a different color to the other accounts. This means it wouldn't be so hard to re-purpose it and set it from the Display settings. This would make me very happy.

Conclusion

The user experience for people using multiple accounts can be improved:

Disclaimer

I used real accounts to make the screenshots. I made reasonable efforts to hide all sensitive user data. I did not scramble information related to our accounts: Softland @softlandro, Backup4all @backup4all, FBackup @fbackup, novaPDF @novapdf and doPDF @dopdf

Update

(November 4, 2022) Since a while it is possible to add more than 5 accounts in the mobile application. Still not possible to exceed this limit in the web version.