Bad UX is keeping the majority of people away from Lemmy
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You can either face reality or not, literally nobody cares about your opinion on the matter. Many people who don't join lemmy say this, that is simple fact.
okay, bye!
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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?
Honestly, if picking a server is too difficult, how have you survived this long? It's literally like picking an email host.
That's the UX people are complaining about. How far have we fallen that making a choice is now a problem? "Pick what you like" leads to people going "OMG, this is terrible, I have to make my own decisions
" No wonder people love AI, because they can't think for themselves.The only improvement would be setting a default or giving them themes to choose from which they are interested in and selecting a server for them based on that.
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Look I don't have any data to back it up, only my experience and many others (eg. https://lemmy.ca/comment/14524858)
I'm also not going to go try and dig up all the evidence to try and prove this to you.
I am a IT professional and have been part of developing many web apps that see tens of thousands of users per day.
We would do AB testing to see what works for users and what gets a better click through rate etc.As soon as a user needs to think, they drop off like crazy, that's just a fact you can look up good UX design.
It's also a fact that joining lemmy requires a lot of thinking and tweaking etc. to get to a good place.I've been using lemmy for months now, and I'm still not happy with the UI even after tweaking and trying many different things.
I don't have any data to back it up
That was my point. A number of times in this thread, you've stated your opinion as "a fact" or expressed it as obviously correct. It's possible to get your point across without the condescension and acknowledging it's your opinion.
I agree that the nature of federation on Lemmy and other federated social networks is complicated. Resolving that is no easy task. However, your stance in this post seems to be the burden of choosing your instance should be removed or streamlined by randomization. I personally disagree - while there is a hurdle to having to choose an instance and that is a barrier to entry, it's also valuable in them learning that this isn't just another platform under a single umbrella.
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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?
So they want to replace a social media site ran by rich fucks with a social media site run by rich fucks?
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Joining is a bad experience. "Please commit now to a server on this service you know nothing about... Then you can try it out!" I understand the concept of decentralization, but it's ass-backwards...
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 havenāt even given it a second thought about changing because I donāt know why I would. It seems pretty arbitrary which instance you join.
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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?
Something else to keep in mind is that most Redditors nowadays (like Twitter and Bluesky users) are mobile users. I think a lot of Lemmy mobile apps have a good UI and solve that problem. However, it's hard to point new users at a single website/app/etc to join. Bluesky does that. Obviously, that's bad for decentralization, but Bluesky is also still a beta protocol that's headed toward decentralization at some point. Their single instance was necessary for them at the start.
When a new/small social media platform that acts as an alternative of a bigger platform pops up, one of the common topics on the alternative are people talking about how it's better than the old place and/or just trashing the old place. Eventually, they outgrow that (assuming that platform survives). I feel like that's happened with Bluesky. Browsing it, everyone seems to be talking about their own usual topics now, and I see very few posts calling out Twitter or comparing Bluesky to Twitter nowadays.
Lemmy still feels like it's in that "bash the old place" stage to me. Maybe ~20% or posts I see are talking about Reddit or talking about Lemmy in relation to Reddit. It's annoying.
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Would they be interested in Lemmy? Them using old.reddit shows that they would probably like it here
I already tried getting them on. Maybe https://old.lemmy.world/ can help.
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The idea that one must commit, is the problem. At first, I signed up for 3 or 4 servers. It needs to be pointed out that no commitment is necessary.
Was your experience different between those 3-4 servers or was it pretty much universally consistent?
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How old are those friends of yours?
I mean... old (it's in the name). Does it matter? What's your point?
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Why is ādramaā on Lemmy always highly exaggerated by people?
āEndless wars of who federates with whoā. What is that person even talking about and who the fuck would even care as a normal user?
I've seen it a few times but it's really easy to avoid tbh
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Been using Lemmy for a couple of years, not seen this once.
Also, the ux is pretty much the same as Reddit.
These people are just stakeholders in Reddit. They are afraid of change, or losing any rep they have. They sit on a pile of useless upvotes.
I think a lot of people that think the UX is different from reddit weren't on reddit 14 years ago when it did look very similar to this.
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I don't have any data to back it up
That was my point. A number of times in this thread, you've stated your opinion as "a fact" or expressed it as obviously correct. It's possible to get your point across without the condescension and acknowledging it's your opinion.
I agree that the nature of federation on Lemmy and other federated social networks is complicated. Resolving that is no easy task. However, your stance in this post seems to be the burden of choosing your instance should be removed or streamlined by randomization. I personally disagree - while there is a hurdle to having to choose an instance and that is a barrier to entry, it's also valuable in them learning that this isn't just another platform under a single umbrella.
My opinion as a IT professional who's been involved with UX & UI for 12 years.
Just google 'Good UX principles' and you'll see Lemmy breaks so many of them.I'm sorry but you're wrong, Lemmy breaks basic UX principles the UX is bad on multiple levels, that's just the reality, all I'm saying is we should do something about it.
I don't have the answer to a perfect solution, but something needs to be done to smooth out the process of joining and getting used to the platform.
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So now you are telling a user to make 3 or 4 accounts at once
Not necessarily. That's just what I did.
The point is, they aren't making a permanent decision. They can switch or move at any time for any reason. -
I'm 32 and work in tech, The reality is the vast majority of people won't want to use old.reddit style UI
I'm comfortable powering through shitty UI/UX etc. I've even built them myself, but others won't settle for shitty UI
You and your friends are old I assume, and got used to the old.reddit UI, and didn't want to change.
Most people are used to modern UI, and won't want to change to old UI, just like you don't want to change either. We should better cater for average people.
You're thinking like a designer for a slick, centralised, profit-and-growth-seeking company (no shade, I'm guessing that thinking literally makes you good at your job). The fediverse is entirely about choice; if different instances want to have a different default look and feel then that's great and new users can pick one they like the look of, but insisting that everyone should have the one that you think is best isn't a meaningful or helpful change.
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People like to commit, though. They want to commit. They want to make an account and be done. The ability for established users and communities to move around is a great feature that makes Lemmy superior to other sites, but it really needs to work on making new users feel comfortable enough to stay put when they're first figuring things out, because if a new user decides to leave, they're probably not switching instances, they're switching platforms.
That's a good point. May be true.
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Joining is a bad experience. "Please commit now to a server on this service you know nothing about... Then you can try it out!" I understand the concept of decentralization, but it's ass-backwards...
I like the analogy that Lemmy is like an email provider. Many possible providers, one Internet. Maybe we could get more traction if Lemmy were marketed in a similar manner? Or even have email service like sdf.org?
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Man. You just gave me an idea (which would matter if I wasnāt 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 youād 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.
Itās probably too late for that.
Ultimately, Iām happy with the fediverse. Algorithms arenāt dictating what I see. Thereās 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 itās gone.
I think some servers do that? They definitely try to cater to niches.
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Man. You just gave me an idea (which would matter if I wasnāt 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 youād 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.
Itās probably too late for that.
Ultimately, Iām happy with the fediverse. Algorithms arenāt dictating what I see. Thereās 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 itās gone.
Thatās 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?
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Having a barrier to entry just filters out non tech savvy people, and creates a bubble.
We want all kinds of people on Lemmy, not just tech savvy people.
It also keeps people that join active for longer if there is a wider variety of content which comes from there being more members.
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My opinion as a IT professional who's been involved with UX & UI for 12 years.
Just google 'Good UX principles' and you'll see Lemmy breaks so many of them.I'm sorry but you're wrong, Lemmy breaks basic UX principles the UX is bad on multiple levels, that's just the reality, all I'm saying is we should do something about it.
I don't have the answer to a perfect solution, but something needs to be done to smooth out the process of joining and getting used to the platform.
Why are you passing off the onus of proof to me or others in this thread? It's your argument.
Just google 'Good UX principles' and you'll see Lemmy breaks so many of them
No thanks, I'm also a decades long IT Professional and I'm not going to do that. It's your argument so your burden of proof.
Lemmy breaks basic UX principles the UX is bad on multiple levels
Again, please feel free to cite specific examples.
