Bad UX is keeping the majority of people away from Lemmy
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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?
If you mention Lemmy, point someone towards a specific instance so it's not so much of a shock. Then they can slowly learn about what it is.
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I'll be ditching reddit completely after 16th of April. Till then I'm slowly doing my migration. Lemmy is awesome.
Why April 16th?
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When half the posts in your feed are "X instance bad" people get just tired and go out.
It has happened to me sometimes a meaningful part of my feed was just people brigading about some instance they don't like. It's ridiculous.
this is about 0.1% of posts… quit lying
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The biggest UX issues, in my opinion, is the process of choosing an instance and content discovery.
When you go to "join lemmy", rather than choosing a username, you're presented a big list of instances, and you have no idea what that means and what it means for your experience if you choose one. Even though in reality it doesn't really matter, just having the list paraylyses the user as it's not a process they're used to. Users are likely asking themselves:
- Am I going to miss out on content from other instances?
- Do I need an account per instance to interact with their communities?
Sometimes I think it would be best if we could have some kind of read-only instance people can create an account on and get stuck in first, then choose an instance to sign up to once they understand it. The instance would be locked down so they couldn't create any communities. So basically when they they're directed to join-lemmy and go to sign up, they create an account on that instance right away and get started.
Read only instance would put them off too. The best solution, IMO:
- create a pool of instances that will act as the default ones
- when creating an account, create it on one of the instances, redirect the user there
- add an option to migrate an account to a different instance in case the user wants to choose a different one after a month or so
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Why April 16th?
After that my premium expires. Also I'm suspend indefinitely.
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Being able to just browse without signup and see largely federated content would pull in a lot of people. I am new to federated concepts, but would a generic, non-profit "home page" that's browseable without signup is possible? Apps like Voyager could dump newbies into that until they want to post/interact?
Yeah you can browse an instance without being logged in, so that would be possible.
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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.
We don't want to send everyone to the same instance otherwise it'll end up becoming dominant (see Lemmy World)
From what I've learnt in network science, I've got bad news for you: real-world networks tend to follow power-law distributions.
Lemmy, being a social network, is unlikely to be an exception. Some instances are going to become hubs and the rest would be peripheral.
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Sounds like a skill issue to me.
And? We want all kinds of people on Lemmy not just 'skilled' people
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Read only instance would put them off too. The best solution, IMO:
- create a pool of instances that will act as the default ones
- when creating an account, create it on one of the instances, redirect the user there
- add an option to migrate an account to a different instance in case the user wants to choose a different one after a month or so
By read-only, I mean they couldn't create any communities. So essentially it would be an instance that has accounts but nothing else. Users would still be able to vote and comment on other commnities and subscribe. They could stay on it if they wanted to, but of course they wouldn't be able to create any communities.
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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.
The UX once you figure out what works for you in Lemmy is nice, the UX getting to that point is terrible, as many have said.
Most will quit before getting to the good part. -
Exactly.
UX is like a Joke, if you need to explain it to someone it's bad UX
Unexplained choices are extremely frustrating and cause confusion. It would be awesome if people could magically choose the right instance for themselves without being aware that they are making a choice, but that just isn't realistic.
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Really early on like right after the API fuckfest, there was a large influx of users who picked servers based on whatever. As a result, servers defederated and there was a lot of drama as a result.
Though that said I haven't heard much about defederating in some time.
What would prevent the same happening in the next wave of rats jumping ship? They don't know anything about the servers or their niches, so they pick whatever. Listing all the servers and their missions is a good start for those motivated to join, but for those more on the fence, how do we ease the transition?
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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...
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.
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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?
Uh yeah. I’ve got no clue how to find new communities? Instances? Groups? Whatever the hell the equivalent of a subreddit is called. It’s not user friendly at all.
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We don't want to send everyone to the same instance otherwise it'll end up becoming dominant (see Lemmy World)
From what I've learnt in network science, I've got bad news for you: real-world networks tend to follow power-law distributions.
Lemmy, being a social network, is unlikely to be an exception. Some instances are going to become hubs and the rest would be peripheral.
Sadly you're probably right. It would be nice if there were some load balancing mechanism where restrigrations could be shut for the larger instances where it recognises that it's grown much larger than the rest, and recommend altnerative instances.
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Really early on like right after the API fuckfest, there was a large influx of users who picked servers based on whatever. As a result, servers defederated and there was a lot of drama as a result.
Though that said I haven't heard much about defederating in some time.
Pepperidge Farm remembers.
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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?
Ah, The Great Filter of Lemmy, yes.
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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.
I think a good solution would be to randomly send people to one of the top 5 instances that aren't very political (What ever that might be)
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Explain what exactly?
If you have to explain a joke it loses its meaning.
If you have to explain UI, it loses its meaning.It should be self explanatory.
People here say Lemmy's UX is fine, and then give a paragraph of instructions a user should follow to get started.
They should just be able to start scrolling immediately, and if they want to interact they should be asked to create an account, and a instance suggested. -
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.
So now you are telling a user to make 3 or 4 accounts at once
