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I just visited Twitter's homepage. And it's actually a really nice converting homepage. Almost felt the urge to register.

But I was wondering a thing. The homepage has a few short sentences, after some sentences a point is placed, after some not. Twitter homepage

I'm pretty sure this has something to do with user-interface/the way people read websites. In Dutch there is no gramatically reason to do this.

My question: How did the user-interface designers decided after what sentence to place a point, and after which not? Is there a rule for this?

This is what I came up with after thinking myself:

1. It's because some separated sentences actually belong together linguistic. This is wrong in my opinion, because each sentence start with a capital letter indication a new sentence. So actually after each sentence a point should be placed, which is not the case here.

2. It's so people will read two sentences as one e.g in the right part they say: "See what's happening in the world right now" -> "Join Twitter today". Maybe they didn't placed a point because now people read it as one sentence, and are someone more coinvinced that by joining today the are staying updated by what's happening in the world?

Also notice, that different languages have different point-placements. The Dutch version of the homepage for example doesn't have a point at the end of the first sentence, where as the english version has.

TL;DR: How did the Twitter user-interface designers decided after what sentence to place a point, and after which not? Is there a rule for this?

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  • It seems to be your language version (Dutch maybe?). I tried English, Spanish, Italian and German versions and all sentences are ended with a period
    – Devin
    Feb 15, 2019 at 1:40
  • @Devin Yes it's Dutch. Could it be possible it's just a typo? ...
    – O'Niel
    Feb 15, 2019 at 2:04

2 Answers 2

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No. This is a mistake. How did they decide? They didn't. They're human and they made a continuity error.

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  • Oh okay. Yet I'm interested. How do copywriters use punctations to make text look more fluent?
    – O'Niel
    Feb 15, 2019 at 5:06
  • I don't understand. They follow proper grammar and language rules?? o_O
    – insidesin
    Feb 15, 2019 at 5:08
  • There is a difference between writing proper grammar and language rules, and copy writing. I bet an experienced good copywriter uses punctations smart to make text more fluent, I would like to know if someone knows these punctation tips.
    – O'Niel
    Feb 15, 2019 at 5:33
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    I wouldn't know, since that doesn't really belong on a conversion page. Also. I know this answer is short but I am constantly in the same boat with the web applications I develop. Some things have dots some don't, but if they're side by side they never differ. Or if they're part of a proper paragraph.
    – insidesin
    Feb 15, 2019 at 5:40
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I agree to the accepted answer, it's a mistake, I add the Spanish home page where the points are all well placed:

spanish

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