Twitter Testing New Search Prompts Above the Main Feed in the App

Here’s a relatively small, but potentially valuable new Twitter experiment. Today, Twitter has launched a test which will see your tweet search options added to the main home page in the app, making it easier to conduct a search across the platform without having to switch to the Explore tab.

As you can see in these examples, Twitter’s testing out two variations of the format, with a full search text bar at the top of the main timeline, and a smaller magnifying glass icon up next to your timeline settings.

Hang on second, I hear you say, doesn’t Twitter already have a search option on the main page?

No, it doesn’t – in order to conduct a search in the app, you need to switch to the dedicated ‘Explore’ tab, where you have a search query bar at the top of the screen.

Will having the capacity to conduct searches from the home screen get more people to do so? Maybe. It’s hard to see it making a huge difference to user behavior, but potentially, by simply prompting people with a more explicit search option, that could help to raise awareness, and get more people thinking about how they might like to find other conversations happening in the app.

It doesn’t seem overly significant, especially given that most people already know how to search in the app. But again, maybe that simple prompt at the top of the screen will trigger more search activity in the app, and get more users more involved in conversations and exchanges.

The test is being conducted among some users on iOS