Bad UX is keeping the majority of people away from Lemmy
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Maybe this is a terrible thing to say, but I actually like that registering for federated sites requires a bit work.
IMO, the internet was more enjoyable when it was just full of us nerds
Yeah, that was my first thought when I read this too. There were plenty of people for whom the internet in general, or later social media, was too complex for them to bother with. I think each generation of technology leaves behind a certain % of people who are past the point of being willing or able to learn how to use something new, and that isn't really a bad thing.
Yes, you have to have some notion of what "federated" means and how it works to make full use of federated sites. But it's just asking people to learn a little bit about a couple new terms, and spending a few minutes outside of their comfort zone while they orient to a new environment, just like when the internet itself or social media started. And I think we obviate the entire point of building something new by trying to make it completely familiar and friction-less for people. If that was the best way to build community, then the internet would just be the phone book and social media would just be the personals section of a newspaper.
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Maybe this is a terrible thing to say, but I actually like that registering for federated sites requires a bit work.
IMO, the internet was more enjoyable when it was just full of us nerds
Hmmm. Actually maybe it can be leveraged.
There should perhaps be a default instance that it funnels everyone into but makes a "power user" option available from a drop down where they can CHOOSE an instance. Make it an opt-in thing instead of a mandatory hurdle.
Mastodon needs this too.
...
Mastodon needs this ESPECIALLY.
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For the majority of commenters: UX is not UI.
The poor UX experience is the research a person has to do before they can even participate. You need to have a basic understanding of how the network works, and then you have to shop around for a server.
It’s enough friction to prevent people from on-boarding and that’s not good for a platform that needs people to be valuable.
Yes. Lemmy is not friendly for the "average" user. We could come up with a list of severs with pros and cons to them and then people would feel more comfortable. I came here the moment reddit killed the API and I was so confused. Federated anything meant nothing to me and I discovered lemmy.world so that's just what I joined. LOL I still don't know the difference between servers.
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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?
LEMMY IS FUN PLEASE
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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?
imo this friction will erode as larger instances come into play; people will join a large, main instance without even knowing of the others, and-- if they have a problem with the instance they joined-- they'll find they can easily jump ship there.
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"Extremely" confusing?
Maybe to someone who has never once used email. But, even then, you could say "It's like choosing a car, some look different, but they can all use the same roads." If someone has never used a car, you could say "It's like choosing a brand of underwear". If they don't use underwear, do we really want them here?
Confusing as in why is it so prominent for something that doesn't matter at all. Why is it separate if its the same damn thing except for the link
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Confusing as in why is it so prominent for something that doesn't matter at all. Why is it separate if its the same damn thing except for the link
Because you have to make a choice. If you go to a restaurant and say "I'd like a meal, please" they'll make you choose one from the menu. It doesn't matter to them which one you choose, you just have to choose.
In this case, some Lemmy instance needs to be the one where you sign in. Most of them probably don't care if you choose them or not. But, if you want to use Lemmy, at some point you have to make a choice.
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Maybe you're right, but I think that the issue isn't that everyone was on one server, but there was nowhere for them to go without loosing touch with the people they connect with there. The fediverse can easily give people an out and they can still stay in touch with the people they want.
"I started out on .world but didn't like their moderation and defederation practices, so I moved."
That works for me. But most of us here have been running linux boxes on ARM devices for so long that we have trouble relating to the average user. I met someone recently who makes great contributions to Reddit posts like fact checking and providing digestible research. They're not tech savvy and I doubt we'll ever have the value of their contribution here while things are as complicated as they are up front.
It would be nice if I could use (my name)@(mydomain) and just point (mydomain) at whichever public instance, without having to spool up my own instance.
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Biodiversity is great. Abandoning confused users isn't. Those options can still exist without baffling the user.
"Marketing programming" understands the human condition and tries to facilitate people. That part - for all its other failings - is more empathetic than telling people who struggle that we refuse to "dumb down" the process for them.
It's not empathetic. It just tries to understand human psychology well enough to manipulate consumer choices for more profits. If you want something on that philosophy, that's what reddit is already for.
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Too many choices = analysis paralysis
And yet here you are.
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...it would be if in your analogy GMail blocks Yahoo because they don't like the politics of their CEO, Outlook blocks both GMail and Yahoo to create a safe space, and you left Protonmail out of the list entirely because almost everyone else is blocking them for not banning users who email the wrong kind of porn to each other.
It's not a big deal until you realize the notion that they all talk to each other is mostly a lie and all the big ones block dozens of instances each. Hell, the threads on the larger instances about whether or not Threads and Truth Social should be defederated if they ever enable federation were some of the highest activity topics on Lemmy for a bit. So was people cheering about Burggit shutting down their lemmy server.
Okay I see now, that's a good deal of nuance.
One more bad analogy, it's like browsing private video game servers.
There's several websites that host lists of Minecraft Servers, some are hidden from those lists due to various reasons.
A federated video game like VR Chat or Minecraft would be incredible. You could probably do that last one with a server plugin.
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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 should have an account creation process like those old RPGs where it asks a series of questions then says, “we recommend this server: <blah>. It is <one short sentence about its content>” then has click next to proceed or click “I want to choose another server” to just get a list.
1-hate, 5-love
Do you like capitalism?
Do you like tech?
Do you like sports?
Would you prefer a large server?
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imo this friction will erode as larger instances come into play; people will join a large, main instance without even knowing of the others, and-- if they have a problem with the instance they joined-- they'll find they can easily jump ship there.
Base privacy rules of federation. The main difference in sign ups seems to be privacy policy. Or some filter on sign up that isn’t choose an instance but a filter that “finds you an instance.”
“Do you want to provide an email address?”
“Do you want x, y, z?”
Filter down to a single instance or if multiple just randomize what instance you toss them to. Just don’t make it a decision. When they are finished signing up send them a note that’s says “you can always change instances by going to _____ link or something to make account or change instances ____”
It’s really not complex but it’s the “feel” of complexity. For instance I froze a bit because some instances had no privacy policy, some said oh yeah we spy on you, some said no email needed just sign up… just get rid of that deer in the headlights moment, or standard privacy rules for federation in the “main” group.
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And yet here you are.
I work in IT so this is more familiar to me than it would be to the avg person.
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I work in IT so this is more familiar to me than it would be to the avg person.
And? The tech bros currently ransacking the federal government also work in IT.
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Do you know why? It sounds to me like a great addition to the fediverse.
@[email protected] commented above with a good experience of why it's a crappy idea (I was thinking a randomzier would be good too.
I just clicked the first option it showed, which (for me) was a non-English instance. The second option was that LGBT-focused instance that defederated with lemmy.world a few months ago. Of course I didn’t know anything about either community so I just picked randomly.
I could see that happening a lot. I've messed with other randomizing systems and sometimes you forget how many niche or non matching picks can pop up when you really look at it. Even a 10% match with language barriers wouldn't be good for a reliable system of placement.
I also don't like the "what harry potter house" do you belong to quiz stuff or anything that asks to crawl or input your data (no thank you). Definitely more complicated than I thought.
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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 disagree that this is a concern. If you are already exaggerating about federation wars, chances are you already tried lemmy and know a good bit about selecting instances. The average user will not care as much as you do.
The average user will go to join-lemmy site, will not care at all about the different instances and likely choose the biggest one or first one they see. None of them will think "oh no this one is involved in federation wars" because thats not something you find out before knowing some about the fediverse.
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Maybe it’s personal bias but I’d put a lot more weight into the comments about
- too few members
- wtf is multiple servers?
While I understand the power, the ideal of multiple federated servers, I still see it as an impediment for use. I know there’s online descriptions but I fail to see why I need to research and choose a server, especially when none really have the membership to support smaller communities yet
The biggest advantage of federated social media is that there's multiple servers. I know it can be a rough point for new users, but most people can just join whatever the largest server is and they'll be perfectly fine. You need to pick a server because lemmy isn't one website, and it shouldn't be one website. People should be able to host an instance if they disagree with another one's moderation/rules, and spreading the load across many servers helps to prevent large scale downtime when servers go down.
All of these advantages can coexist with new users just being pointed to lemmy.world. -
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?
whatever, just make a lemmy app that defaults to lemmy.world i guess
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I disagree that this is a concern. If you are already exaggerating about federation wars, chances are you already tried lemmy and know a good bit about selecting instances. The average user will not care as much as you do.
The average user will go to join-lemmy site, will not care at all about the different instances and likely choose the biggest one or first one they see. None of them will think "oh no this one is involved in federation wars" because thats not something you find out before knowing some about the fediverse.
The average user will go to join Lemmy and abort, because they can't grasp the idea that joining one server gets them into other servers. They worry about server selection, have analysis paralysis, and nope out. That's why they're asking for a bluesky reddit and not a mastodon reddit.
Normie's want centralization because they don't understand how else it can work and while some can learn and have it explained many will give up before giving it a chance.
