14 DAY TRIAL // The latest Twitter redesign, possibly the biggest to date, has been in testing for the past couple of weeks and Twitter is rolling it out gradually to ensure there are no hiccups.
There's plenty to like about the new design, but here's one thing you probably didn't realize, the two-pane layout is very much based on the "golden ratio," sometimes referred to as the "divine proportion."
The golden ratio, 1:1.61803399, is very important in mathematics and has show up in architecture, art and design from ancient times.
The number has gained a rather mystical nature about it since it can be found in the proportions of the Egyptians pyramids or the Greek Acropolis.
Since the Renaissance, the number has been studied and applied to works of art as way of creating pleasant proportions.
In Twitter's case, the number plays a role when designing the two-pane layout of the "New Twitter."
The size of the panels adjusts to the width of the browser window and screen size, but its smallest version respects the golden ratio in most elements, as an image posted by Twitter in Flickr shows.
"To anyone curious about #NewTwitter proportions, know that we didn't leave those ratios to chance," Twitter explains on Flickr.
"This, of course, only applies to the narrowest version of the UI. If your browser window is wider, your details pane will expand to provide greater utility, throwing off these proportions. But the narrowest width shows where we started, ratio-wise," Twitter says.
The redesign is a major revamp and is said to be the brainchild of CEO Ev Williams who worked with the design team and Twitter engineers to get it right.
The New Twitter has been received very well by users and it looks like the roll-out is progressing smoothly as more and more people now see it.