A safer Twitter
The problem
Users don’t feel in control of their safety on Twitter — and don’t think Twitter does enough to curb the spread of misleading information.
The ask
Show we care about protecting the health of the public conversation and teach users about Twitter’s new safety features with a new education video series.
The concept
Using classic western fables, our video series teaches users how they can better control their timeline and make Twitter a safe place to speak up.
Storytelling
To make these videos more engaging and approachable than usual UI walkthrough videos, we amped up the storytelling. From the fables we chose to the Tweets we wrote, every design choice moved the story forward.
Art direction
A mixed media approach. Combining UI demos, stock cartoon footage, and typography animation to make these films as educational as they are entertaining.
Considerations
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Translating/transcreating videos means considering factors like:
Character count. Depending on the language, some words require more characters when translated. Keeping supers under by at least a few characters will make designers happy when they need to switch out copy with a different language.
Universal narratives. Some things just don’t translate well. Depending on if you’re translating or transcreating, things like idioms, slang words, pop culture references, and celebrity mentions can lose meaning and mess up the narrative if not considered from the concepting stage.
Project timeline. Since transcreation can take longer (and is more expensive) than translations, localization needs and limitations had to be factored into the creative concept.
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Designing visuals and narratives with accessibility in mind include:
Testing for seizure-causing screens. Regularly checking a video’s flashing screen levels will keep the final product from potentially triggering epileptic viewers.
Adding quality captions. For the deaf and hard-of-hearing, quality captions are essential. Elements like line pacing, audio synchronization, and speaker identifications can help both the deaf and hard-of-hearing community and anyone who interacts with your product on mute understand your story.
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Research shows that political and health misinformation disproportionally affects underrepresented minorities the hardest.
While the primary audience was all users, we also wanted the videos to connect with marginalized communities and show that Twitter is committed to keeping them safe on the platform.
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Since these videos were going to live in Twitter’s help center, they needed to be evergreen assets.
And since UI tweaks happen all the time, our concept and scripts had to make sense independent of UI screen layouts and user flows so designers can update the UI without changing the video’s narrative.