Bad UX is keeping the majority of people away from Lemmy
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"Wah wah it's so hard to pick a server!"
JUST LIKE EMAIL YOU NITWIT!
The problem is, and was for me too - that's not how people think of email. Saying "pick a server" is really arcane for most people, even "pick a domain." The fediverse as a whole has a terminology and jargon problem it still hasn't completely reckoned with, or at least figured out.
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Yea getting into Lemmy is confusing. I only use sync because it's easier, I have no idea how to even access it on desktop. It definitely needs some QoL improvements before I can really start recommending it to people
There is a reason such a large part of Lemmy is developers. There's no confusion signing up for the developers. Federations and servers and instances are all crazy jargon to regular people. Although we may not want all regular types here, having some more regular people to balance out all the high IQ techies could make things more fun.
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Have tell new users just sign up on your instance. Make it less confusing by sending them to a specific website and not just telling them about the software.
I swear to God, there are so many tech people here that overthink it because they know details that the average user would not give a single fuck about.
This exactly. Once I dove in and stopped reading, it oddly made more sense to me.
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Create username and password
Sign into preferred app from your favorite store.I liked old reddit, and Baconreader, so for me Jerboa was great
Jerboa is awesome, and it's come a very long way in a really short timespan.
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To access it on desktop, just open the browser and type your server's URL (in your case, lemmy.world)
I guess we have to roll back from "apps for everything", or else many people might genuinely not know how to access their instance.
There are people who don't realize that reddit is a website. Stew on that for a minute.
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I think a big problem is a lot of the explainers for new users, at least the ones that were around back when I first joined Mastodon, were or are absolute dog shit. They were all existential explanations rather than practical ones. I was trying to figure out which instance to join, and why one might be better for me than another, and every explainer I saw was basically a variation on, "iT's JuSt LikE EmAiL. wHy Is tHaT hArD? sToP bEiNg So sTuPid, DuMmY." None of them really explained the user experience, and how different instances might affect it, let alone the existence of the local and global feeds and how your instance choice affects those. It was like asking someone how to use chopsticks and them telling you, "It's easy. Just put food in your mouth with them. Works just like a fork."
Technically true, but it omits some pretty crucial information.
Once you're into it and have the lay of the land, it seems really simple in retrospect. But if you're coming in cold with no idea how any of it works, and the only help you get is some dickhead shouting, "EmAiL! iT's LiKe EmAiL!" then the learning curve seems a lot steeper than it actually is.
Very well said! -
Could have auto versus manual server choice. Can always maintain option for granular selection, but "normies" could walk into a quiz when migrating?
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Top three things you used Reddit for? (List of maybe 10+ things, servers can maintain their feature list to empower this)
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Do you like A) talking to everybody about days topics B) talking to a smaller group of like minded people
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Do you like A) a MORE moderated space B) a LESS moderated space, realizing you may see more spam and controversy
And then calculates a server that meets needs, if multiple, then random number generator to assign a server. On user side, all they see is a quiz followed by a typical registration screen. This would help with distribution of users across niche servers, but feel lighter for user. They also would assume a more curated experience, regardless of where they end up. Servers could have to opt in to be fed users from search of they were afraid of impact on cost to maintain server.
The above likely aren't the right questions, but this framework could be effective
Somebody will have to host that. Whether it's a Lemmy app developer, or baked into the Lemmy codebase itself.
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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?
Multi-reddits on Lemmy!
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Regardless if it was the plan, it's the result.
I can't stand what it has become, especially when some of the most problematic subs have massive influence over the rest of the site, like wsb.
I just wish you had recourse for false (or maybe even correct, but heavy handed) bans, and it's still the largest gathering place for many communities - retro games, queer communities, other adult interest (not just pornography) spaces, local events/happenings, so it's really terrible to just be completely shut out of all of that. Whether voluntarily or not. (In my case not.)
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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 think Lemmy needs a higher-level sign-up procedure that hides the complexity of the fediverse. This could be a webpage with a simple, clutter-free interface that handles picking and registering on an instance from a curated list semi-automatically, for example, by asking you 3-4 questions before giving you a suggested server that fits your responses (that you can change) with a button to register right away (and handle the occasional additional sign-up requirements that some instances have).
IMHO, 90% of users will never interact with the "federation" aspects of Lemmy after that, and they also don't need to. I personally don't feel like Lemmy being federated has much of an impact on my user experience day to day.
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I wasn't gonna say anything but that's another issue with the userbase on Lemmy.
It's occupied by a lot of people who think they are better and smarter than everyone else. Not that reddit didn't also have that problem but the smugness levels are definitely way higher around these parts.
I'm sure it'll go away with time, hopefully as more people join and contribute.
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makes me think of people who say they don't like tofu. (tofu is a protein sponge that tastes like whatever you soak/cook it in)
Oh I love tofu. Fried, with a bit of teriyaki sauce. Yummy.
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Nothing, this seems like a good thing, I don't want them here if they literally cannot even comprehend the concept of different servers, though somehow no one has this issue with discord even though it's dogshit, almost as if they just yearn for the corporate boot.
With discord, though, the "server" part is largely hidden from the user or at least transparent - that's the thing. It simplifies the same concept into something more tangible.
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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?
Endless wars about federations. Ha, so true. Along with switching to Linux and Privacy.
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The apps are kinda meh. I haven't found one that doesn't come with significant disadvantages yet, and I've tried FIVE.
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There's no recommendations feed. You see what you're subscribed to, or everything. No in-between. You can't see what you've subscribed to, and a few posts that the algorithm thinks you might like. People like to complain about the algorithm, but one reason it's so addictive is that it's useful.
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Notifications don't work in every app
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Just having a feed that behaves normally seems to be really hard to do for apps. Stop slowing me posts I've already scrolled past, and when I click home/pull down to refresh, I want new posts, not the same thing again that I've already scrolled past and ignored. Some apps have settings (that are somehow not on by default) to hide read posts and mark posts read on scroll, but I haven't tried an app where that works every time.
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There's no "main" app. Think about Reddit before the API fees. There used to be a default app. It had its issues, but most features worked out of the box, and most things were intuitive and normie-friendly. You could use that to get comfortable with the social network itself, and then eventually try other apps when something got too annoying.
Compare that with Lemmy. You want to try it, and you already have to deal with choice paralysis. A ton of apps on the website, with utterly unhelpful descriptions ("an open-source Lemmy client developed by so-and-so"; wow, exactly zero of those words help me pick) and a random order that doesn't even let me default to one most popular one.
Quite a few apps focus on niche UI features like swipe-based navigation while still not having the basics down right. I'm several months into having joined Lemmy and I still haven't found an app that feels somewhat right. That is a challenge not one of the other social networks has managed. Congrats, Lemmy. Impressive.
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Picking a server and signing up in general is complicated. And it's an impactful decision that you have NO tools to make so early, unless you start researching like it's school homework.
.world? That's popular but you'll be judged for having joined it, plus you lose access to the piracy community. .ml? Hope you like communists and DRAMA. And if you get it wrong, there's no intuitive and easy way to migrate. You clunkily export your settings and re-import them; the servers will NOT talk to each other. And even then you lose some stuff.
This UX issue is tough. I don't have an easy solution. But I'm sure a UX expert could find one.
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Manual validation of your sign-up by a human. What is this, a Facebook group? If you introduce a 24-hour delay so early in the process, of course people are going to fall off.
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The mouse logo is kinda ugly, won't lie. I'm sure it's a more potent people repellent than you think.
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There is a LOT of tribalism. On Reddit, there's r/Canada, that's full of convinced conservatives that won't hesitate to artificially skew the discourse. And there's r/OnGuardForThee, basically the same but with progressives angry at the conservatives.
On Lemmy, that feels like the rule, not the exception. I just joined communities based on my interests, and my feed is full of communist vs communist vs non-communist drama. Can we frickin' chill?
If I need to start filtering out whole fields of interest that were taken over, joining less popular community clones or literally defederating instances to get a good experience, we've got it wrong. Normal people don't wanna do that when they literally just got here. They'll just leave.
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Somehow even more US-centric than Reddit. So... Much... American politics.
About the lack of an algorithm: do we really want to recreate the addictiveness of for-profit platforms? Is that actually a healthy feature? Perhaps it's better for society if our social media isn't as addictive as possible.
And on manual validation for sign-ups: before the mass migration from Reddit, most instances didn't seem to have validation, and then as it became popular, we got hit with trolls mass creating accounts posting CP and racist images, making it a game of whack-a-mole to stop it. As Lemmy is all volunteer run, we don't have paid content moderators always watching for that stuff, nor did they have an automated content filter. The main solution is to validate sign-ups so that the moderators and admins are not overwhelmed with spam.
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Ah, I see what you're saying. Under normal circumstances, I would suggest to new users to signup on the "flagship instance", but in Lemmy's case… nah.
To be perfectly honest, I'm not certain what content I'm not seeing because, well, I haven't seen it
. Some instances seem to do a good job of only blocking content from notoriously bad sources.AFAIK, you're able to see pretty much everything on your instance, but Beehaw did defederate from your instance, so think you can see their posts, but they can't see yours.
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I wasn't gonna say anything but that's another issue with the userbase on Lemmy.
It's occupied by a lot of people who think they are better and smarter than everyone else. Not that reddit didn't also have that problem but the smugness levels are definitely way higher around these parts.
Yeah i have a comp sci degree and it took me a minute to understand the different servers and how to curate my feed and then balance quality vs quantity of posts.
Im capable of understanding but i dont want to put effort into my leisure app, and it seems like nobody else does either.
Good starting defaults for instances and the "everything" front page seems most important. Maybe training people on the front page to branch out by showing them posts from up and coming communities..
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I'm sure it'll go away with time, hopefully as more people join and contribute.
I don't know if I would say itll "go away" with time. More like it will get diluted over time as more people join with varying stances on things.
See I am smarter and better than you so I know this to be the truth.
/s
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If coding were something I could do, I'd be tempted to run a modified lemmy instance where voting is disabled all together, and default sorting is forum style.
Edit: oh and nested replies would be disabled too. Maybe add a quote button on people's comments.
Voting being disabled is an option built into Lemmy that the admins can activate, though only a few choose to. I know Blaja disabled down votes but not upvotes.
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Could have auto versus manual server choice. Can always maintain option for granular selection, but "normies" could walk into a quiz when migrating?
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Top three things you used Reddit for? (List of maybe 10+ things, servers can maintain their feature list to empower this)
-
Do you like A) talking to everybody about days topics B) talking to a smaller group of like minded people
-
Do you like A) a MORE moderated space B) a LESS moderated space, realizing you may see more spam and controversy
And then calculates a server that meets needs, if multiple, then random number generator to assign a server. On user side, all they see is a quiz followed by a typical registration screen. This would help with distribution of users across niche servers, but feel lighter for user. They also would assume a more curated experience, regardless of where they end up. Servers could have to opt in to be fed users from search of they were afraid of impact on cost to maintain server.
The above likely aren't the right questions, but this framework could be effective
The lemmy servers could also provide how much headroom they have for extra users and the selection wouldn be weighed based on that so that smaller servers wont be overloaded and larger servers get enough users. They could implement some of this into the lemmy api itself.
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