• by Gavin O'Malley  @mp_gavin, June 9, 2015

As part of what seems like an endless effort to simplify its service, Twitter is changing how conversations show up on the Tweet page.

“Conversations surrounding a Tweet, particularly if they’ve sparked lots of replies and disparate conversations, can be hard to follow,” Akarshan Kumar, product manager at Twitter, admits in a new blog post.

Twitter will now group conversations together, and right below a Tweet, highlight what it deems to be the most interesting exchanges surrounding said Tweet.

To surface interesting conversations, Twitter will consider various factors like whether the original account has replied to others’ comments.

Now, on the Tweet page, Tweets that are part of a conversation are connected by a line, according to Kumar.

If users want to see more of the replies to a specific Tweet within a conversation, they can click “View other replies.”

Despite efforts to address the problem, Twitter has faced increasing criticism for flying over the heads of average users.

Twitter investor Chris Sacco just published a damning critique of the company and its baroque user experience in particular. “For most people, Twitter is too hard to use,” Sacco wrote. “None of this is a surprise, as Twitter was mostly built by and for its power users.”

If Twitter can’t appeal to average users, Sacco and other critics say the company will continue to suffer.

In late April, Twitter CEO Costolo blamed poor first-quarter earnings on “lower-than-expected contribution from some of our newer direct-response products.” Worse yet, he said the company expected the problems to persist for the remainder of the fiscal year.

Revenue for the first quarter was $436 million, which -- while up 74% year-over-year -- was lower than analysts’ estimates of about $457 million.