Bad UX is keeping the majority of people away from Lemmy
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Thanks for sharing! Very much aligned with what i have in mind... Only difference would be to narrow down to 1 or 2 (if at all) on the landing screen - maybe all other options are under a "advanced user? Click here to expand server selection" or something like that...
Join-lemmy suggests outdated and defederated instances: https://lemmy.world/post/24220536
I usually go with https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/post/37336391
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This reddit post likely has tens if not hundreds of thousands of views, look at the top comment.
Lemmy is losing so many potential new users because the UX sucks for the vast majority of people.
What can we do?
Someone advocating for bells and whistles will get eaten alive here. Too many people would rather read their feed on a git terminal. The pushback would be worse than the community drama!
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There are aspects that could be better, sure. I think communities should be like sets of posts, subject to unions, conjuctions, and other set operations. Then you wouldnt have the issue of 5 versions of c/memes, they could be virtually joined into one memes community at the user level (and the user can filter out instances icon unities risers they don't like of course). Moderation could be decoupled from communities and made a broader service that users choose to interact with, agreeing to a level of moderation comfortable for their experience.
But also, put me in the group that thinks lemmy should stay small. Corpo social has convinced us that a single big room with every idiot and literally their mother screaming into it is how the internet should be and it isn't. We can go back to smaller, focused online communities that don't openly invite everyone to come in and fight.
Centralization tendencies are all rooted in power and control. We need to fragment more.
they could be virtually joined into one memes community at the user level
Good luck with !politics from LW, hexbear and feddit.org colliding
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Fine, here is how Lemmy breaks the six of the 7 UX principles
User-Centricity – Lemmy often prioritizes federation and technical features over intuitive user experience. The interface can feel clunky, and onboarding isn't always smooth for new users unfamiliar with the federated model.
Consistency – The UI varies significantly across different Lemmy instances, which can create an inconsistent experience. Some instances modify themes or layouts, making navigation different depending on where you are.
Hierarchy – Unlike Reddit, Lemmy’s ranking algorithms sometimes don’t surface the most relevant or popular posts effectively. Sorting by hot, top, or new doesn’t always work intuitively, leading to lower-quality content appearing before high-quality discussions.
Context – Lemmy’s UI sometimes fails to provide clear context, If a post originates from another instance, clicking on it might not always take you where you expect. Sometimes, users have to manually navigate to the original instance to see all interactions, which breaks contextual continuity.
User Control – Here it's great, users have a lot of control, it might just cost effort to figure out
Accessibility – Lemmy’s UI and design choices can be less accessible, with contrast issues, and mobile usability problems compared to mainstream platforms. Many non tech savvy people are overwhelmed and won't stay.
Usability – Lemmy can be confusing for new users, especially those unfamiliar with federated platforms. The sign-up process, navigation, and feature discoverability could be much smoother.
Nice job articulating your arguments. Now that you've explained your stance, it can foster better discussion.
Since this explanation is so far down the thread, I suggest editing one of your more top level comments to include these points for better engagement.
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This reddit post likely has tens if not hundreds of thousands of views, look at the top comment.
Lemmy is losing so many potential new users because the UX sucks for the vast majority of people.
What can we do?
I use the Boost app for Lemmy so it basically feels exactly like the ideal Reddit experience felt back then, which is fantastic.
As for being put off, the only thing that really bothers me is the extreme hatred for Windows and the deepthroating of Linux. It's creepy.
Like, I love Linux and use it for many things alongside Windows, but I don't get obsessively weird about it to the point of creating memes or going out of my way to tell people why they're wrong for using one over the other, you know?
If that were toned down I'd certainly feel a little more relaxed, but on the whole the Lemmy experience has been lovely
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The reddit concept of subreddits also doesn't work well with federation IMO (at least no Lemmy's implementation).
Want to talk about video games? Well, there's no /r/games, instead there are bunch of different /c/games on different servers with varying amounts of activity. You basically gotta make the "pick a server" decision again whenever you post something. If you make the wrong choice, your post might not get seen by anyone, and even if you post to the biggest sub, you'll be missing out on eyeballs from people on other servers who aren't subscribed to that instance for whatever reason.
For example, lemmy.ml/c/linux_gaming and lemmy.world/c/linux_gaming have around the same number of subscribers. Should I post to both? Maybe the same people subscribe to both, so that's pointless? Or maybe I'll miss out on a lot of discussion if I post only to one? There's no way for me to know.
For me, it makes Lemmy less useful than reddit for asking really niche questions and getting useful answers. For posting comments on whatever pops up in my feed though, it works great.
I don't have any good solutions to this, and I'm sure it has been considered already. When I first joined, I remembered seeing people bring this same issue up, but it doesn't seem like it went anywhere? (Or maybe it did?)
For example, lemmy.ml/c/linux_gaming and lemmy.world/c/linux_gaming have around the same number of subscribers. Should I post to both? Maybe the same people subscribe to both, so that’s pointless?
.ml and world don't really share the same views and vibes
it doesn’t seem like it went anywhere?
Some communities consolidated. Electric cars did a few weeks ago. Cooking communities back in the days.
Some communities prefer to stay on their own.
[email protected] is trying to solve that issue, but regularly posting "the" community on a topic. But you can't prevent everyone to create new communities, the same way 90% of the subreddits are probably empty with a mssing mod
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Potential hot take: Do we even want the majority of people here?
It would be nice to have thriving communities for niche things. That can only really happen when there's decent numbers though. I do understand the hesitation though.
A much larger userbase will bring its own problems for instance admins, where I'm sure it'll start turning into full-time jobs to keep the lights on.
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Man. You just gave me an idea (which would matter if I wasn’t a complete idiot).
Instead of servers that all attempt to be a sort of clone of Reddit, servers could focus on content similar to the way subreddits work.
So you’d join any one of these servers and federate with other servers just like now, only content would be focused between servers.
Example:
This server is a games server. It has /c/games, /c/fallout, /c/vintagegaming, etc.
This server will focus on news and politics. It has /c/worldnews, /c/marketnews, etc.
Sure, it would still have the issue of being fractured, but it would narrow it down so much that it would be more appealing and easier to navigate.
It’s probably too late for that.
Ultimately, I’m happy with the fediverse. Algorithms aren’t dictating what I see. There’s no profit incentive that will lead to bad decisions, so when bad decisions are made, folks will talk about it and come to a solution.
I miss old Reddit, but it’s gone.
This server is a games server. It has /c/games, /c/fallout, /c/vintagegaming, etc.
https://programming.dev/ is for programming
https://lemmy.blahaj.zone/ hosts a lot of queer communities
I prefer [email protected] to the [email protected]
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That’s what that Star Trek server did.
The problem with that is that you need to make a user on one of those servers. Do you make it on the politics one, or the games one? What happens 3 months later when you realize the server you picked on a whim is full of assholes and gets defederated?
Do you think an average user at that point would move their subscriptions to a new account or will they get annoyed at the concept?
The problem with that is that you need to make a user on one of those servers.
Why would you? The communities are accessible from every federated instance
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Potential hot take: Do we even want the majority of people here?
Eternal September.
I still recall the digg migration.
Sort of a hypocrite through cause I'm part of the Reddit 3rd Party API migration...
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I use the Boost app for Lemmy so it basically feels exactly like the ideal Reddit experience felt back then, which is fantastic.
As for being put off, the only thing that really bothers me is the extreme hatred for Windows and the deepthroating of Linux. It's creepy.
Like, I love Linux and use it for many things alongside Windows, but I don't get obsessively weird about it to the point of creating memes or going out of my way to tell people why they're wrong for using one over the other, you know?
If that were toned down I'd certainly feel a little more relaxed, but on the whole the Lemmy experience has been lovely
I use eternity, used infinity beforehand so it basically felt like no change when migrating (eternity is a lemmy fork of infinity)
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I originally joined KBin because I liked the interface better than lemmy.
When I joined lemmy.world I just picked it because it was the most populous.
I haven’t even given it a second thought about changing because I don’t know why I would. It seems pretty arbitrary which instance you join.
Why not https://fedia.io/ ? It uses Mbin, the successor of Kbin
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This reddit post likely has tens if not hundreds of thousands of views, look at the top comment.
Lemmy is losing so many potential new users because the UX sucks for the vast majority of people.
What can we do?
This is intentional. There’s a contingent of Lemmy power users who are actively sabotaging a push to make it more accessible. Every time this comes up, they openly admit their intentions are to keep it niche, and continue gatekeeping.
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Just recommend a website for them to join.
But the crux is which one do you recommend? We don't want to send everyone to the same instance otherwise it'll end up becoming dominant (see Lemmy World).
Ideally we shouldn't need to go through this motion of trying to work out which instance to choose or recommend one for them, they should be able to do that themselves after getting their feet wet.
Being already established, you have a few advantages over the newbies. You know about how a few different instances federate and work, and you know whether or not you like your instance.
Recommend your instance. Or if you wouldn't, whether because it's niche or doesn't work well in general, recommend a generic instance, even if it is .world, because it will probably work and give a good experience.
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This reddit post likely has tens if not hundreds of thousands of views, look at the top comment.
Lemmy is losing so many potential new users because the UX sucks for the vast majority of people.
What can we do?
it feels like old reddit
As someone who exclusively used old.reddit.com, this isn't actually a bad thing.
Also apps for the mobile experience, and I want to say alexandrite for the desktop experience?
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I'm sure you've seen some of the bad experiences new users have posted on here.
But I'll summarise
- It's intimidating to pick a instance,
- Once you login the UI is very different to what you're used to and not very intuitive.
- No tutorial
etc.
Most of those things are kind of a matter of taste though aren't they? If you change those kinds of things you'll get other people complaining who like it like it is now. For example for me I think the default UI is excellent and the alternative ones I've tried are mostly terrible, but I know not everyone thinks the same way.
Other complaints are instance-specific but that's a good thing; instances can operate how they like because we have a choice, that's the whole benefit to Lemmy and federation.
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There are aspects that could be better, sure. I think communities should be like sets of posts, subject to unions, conjuctions, and other set operations. Then you wouldnt have the issue of 5 versions of c/memes, they could be virtually joined into one memes community at the user level (and the user can filter out instances icon unities risers they don't like of course). Moderation could be decoupled from communities and made a broader service that users choose to interact with, agreeing to a level of moderation comfortable for their experience.
But also, put me in the group that thinks lemmy should stay small. Corpo social has convinced us that a single big room with every idiot and literally their mother screaming into it is how the internet should be and it isn't. We can go back to smaller, focused online communities that don't openly invite everyone to come in and fight.
Centralization tendencies are all rooted in power and control. We need to fragment more.
Lemmy is supposed to be the best of both worlds. Smaller internet communities not owned by big corpos and federated together.
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I personally see three big issues with getting new users to Lemmy use and stat on Lemmy:
- knowing about it: It is a matter of time before Reddit bans linking to Lemmy. Either by outright preventing their discussion via shadow deletes or full deletes. join-lemmy.org would be well served by purchasing ads on Google and on Bing
- join-lemmy ux needs to be improved: this goes to your point and I fully agree that there needs to be a better onboarding experience. I am a fairly technical guy and even I had trouble understanding the major concepts behind Lemmy. Many of these concepts aren't terribly important to a new user though. At least at first.
- more and better content: this is fortunately getting better but we're not there yet
Join-lemmy provides a subpar experience: https://lemmy.world/post/24220536
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they could be virtually joined into one memes community at the user level
Good luck with !politics from LW, hexbear and feddit.org colliding
I think two communities could have a consensual federation - where posts from each community shows up in each community's feed.
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Potential hot take: Do we even want the majority of people here?
Yes, I want my niche communities back.
