Bad UX is keeping the majority of people away from Lemmy
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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 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.
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 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.
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?
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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.
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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?
Facebook has servers all over the world; there's not just one Facebook server although it appears to users like that. What would be the effect of asking (potential) Facebook users which server they would like to join?
In a somewhat related question, does anyone know how the extra-instance account transfer request is going? Not sure where to look to find out.
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Not necessarily, but we don't want a accidental filter that filters out non tech savvy people. We want all kinds of people on Lemmy
It's not difficult though. They just can't be arsed and are making excuses for being comfortable and lazy. If there was a $100 million marketing budget and their favourite celebrity was here, they'd sit an hour long entrance exam. The best we can do is make it fun enough here that people want to comment.
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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.
It is definitely not too late for that.
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Potential hot take: Do we even want the majority of people here?
Thats my view, I prefer that Lemmy is small, I’ve had enough of the greater internet tbh
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Was your experience different between those 3-4 servers or was it pretty much universally consistent?
One didn't allow down votes. Seemed like a good idea. I rarely down vote. But in practice, when I do it's for a reason. And I want the option.
Another went down for roughly a week. So that didn't work out.
Which is one reason I embraced Communick; a paid instance. Been here since.
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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.
Really? You never ran into the endless "...furthermore, .ml must be defederated" posts?
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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.
Have you ever been on Facebook? Ever read the illiterate moronic uneducated garbage that people post as fact? It's called 'my truth'; maybe because it's only true in their sphere (of one).
There are going to be a seriously large number of people totally flummoxed by that question.
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it feels like old reddit
Wait, when did that become a bad thing? I exclusively browsed old.reddit.com because the new layout is a fucking abomination.
Yeah, it seems most people still on reddit prefer the newer mobile UI. I never used one of the 'fancy' modern reddit apps, and I'm lowkey scared for the inevitable switch I'll have to make when Eternity finally dies. All the other FOSS apps left have a very 'iOS' feel to them that I can't stand
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this is about 0.1% of posts… quit lying
Sure, but trends seem to hit harder here, probably because we’re smaller. There have been weeks where it seemed like 60% of the non text posts in my feed were about jeans or beans or vegan cat food. Those probably weren’t more than 0.1% of posts, but they sure felt overwhelming at the time.
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Potential hot take: Do we even want the majority of people here?
I don't really want them here, but I'd rather them be here than on reddit. Reddit is more toxic than this place and a lot of that comes top down. At least here people can spin off an instance the minute admins/mods act like dicks. There, the culture just gets worse and festers and it contributes to toxicity in the world outside itself. Imagine if the r/theDonald pricks have been ostracized and started their own instance which most instances defederated with quickly.
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You seem to be conflating "the vast majority" and "people my age". They are not the same.
You're also making a lot of global UX preference claims in this thread without sources or data to back them up.
You seem to be doing the same? Majority of reddit users are younger than op. People who use old reddit are objectively the minority
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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.
I think it's less about ux and more about being confused. People aren't faking being confused. I'm pretty tech savvy but had to do a double take. Still don't fully understand the nuances of federation after over a year and a half. I don't really need to understand all of it though.
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It's not difficult though. They just can't be arsed and are making excuses for being comfortable and lazy. If there was a $100 million marketing budget and their favourite celebrity was here, they'd sit an hour long entrance exam. The best we can do is make it fun enough here that people want to comment.
Exactly. If this minimal effort is keeping people out - GOOD. If you can't put the bare minimum effort in, then you'll just be another mindless TikTok type person and we really don't need those.
