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?
You must log in or register to comment.
The problem is trying to get people into “Lemmy”, where they have to understand federation and choose an instance, etc - instead of trying to get people into a specific instance. I know you don’t want one bloated instance, but if that was the mission it would be a lot easier to get people on board.
I totally disagree.
Potential hot take: Do we even want the majority of people here?
“It was just endless war about who is federated with who?”
Thanks the anti-tankies turds and their constants whining.
It’s why my less “tech savvy” friends won’t join. They don’t understand what federation is, and No they don’t want to take 2 minutes to learn.
It’s annoying, but it’s reality. People don’t understand the whole different servers thing, federation, and how to pick one.
I realize marketing isn’t a strong suit (nor should it be), but I’m proposing two solutions (well maybe not solutions, but something to help):
-
A quick animated video showing the benefits of Lemmy and how this all works (if it hasn’t already been done yet)
-
A service that basically simplifies and centralizes the signup process to one screen. During server selection, users can see the most populated servers and click on them to learn the specific rules for the server, etc.
Idk, maybe we already have all this…or this is just complicating the issue. Or maybe we only want people willing to take 2 minutes to learn about how it all works. Tbh that’s a pretty good natural filter for the types of users I want to be interacting and discussing with.
-
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.
I am very new here, and not as passionate about the fediverse as some of you are (like your average redditor most likely).
Reading the comments here I think that the fact that you notice decentralization as a user can be a problem for many but offering simple instance lists, community lists in the UI can mitigate that and make it more a feature than a nuisance (for those that have trouble navigating it).
On desktop, I don’t mind switching servers with different URLs, especially since I can read them all with the same proton UI. However, on mobile (I spend more time on social media via mobile than desktop, I imagine most people do these days) using the Jerboa app I cannot figure out how to “visit” another server. I can’t enter the URL, I cannot click on the URL, I cannot search for @URL and get a list of the communities hosted on it…
I am sure there is documentation somewhere explaining how I achieve this, but I should not have to look for that just to acces different instances. I use lemmy on breaks mostly and as I said, am not passionate enough about social media to read manpages for it… I imagine some will think “then we don’t need people like you here”, but in the end if close-to mainstream user adoption is a goal, you kind of will need people who just want to look at cats and discover communities as well, and making jumping between instances and finding communities is an important part of making that happen.
Edit: I do not think having an official sign up is a solutiom btw, I think different servers are neat, and I most likely will sign up to another I am more in line with when I know which are available. It is neat to choose a home server, but it should be seemless to find others. There is no need to obfuscate servers and pretend everything is centralized, but having easy access to a centralized list of servers and communities built into the UI seems like a must for me.
Even worse, the Tankies are basically running the landing page that asks them which instance to join.
We should probably make a non-tankie version and get it trending for the Algorithm.
I’ve decided this is good and want a Lemmy that is restricted to just the nerdiest of nerds. These little spaces are cool without all those horrible reddit users.
https://old.lemmy.world/ looks just like reddit. It’s not the UI. It’s network effect and there’s not a lot to be done.
UX means “user experience”. It is distinct from the UI. OP is basically saying the process of signing up to federated social media is too complicated for the average user, not because of the way it looks and how you interact with it (the UI) but because of it’s not as easy to understand the concepts behind how Lemmy works.
People are still on Twitter while the owner makes Nazi salutes and Bluesky is a 1:1 replacement feature-wise with a modern interface. People just don’t like to move.
The fact that Bluesky is almost a 1:1 copy (which includes the dumb stuff like post character limit) is precisely why I don’t like it.
The vast majority of users don’t like the old.reddit view, else reddit would have that as default.
Are you suggesting that businesses only change things based on what their users want? Because that’s obviously nonsense. Enshitification finds a way regardless of what the consumer wants.
Two things can be true at the same time.
Yes reddit doesn’t care about their users.
But also the old reddit is worse for the vast majority of people
It was the default for a very long time. Reddit changed that because it prevented them from monetizing the site that easily. And the admins seemed to dislike what RES could do with the old Reddit look.
I have friends who still only use old.reddit and refuse to switch to new UI.
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.
How old are those friends of yours?
I mean… old (it’s in the name). Does it matter? What’s your point?
How old are you, out of interest? Your posts in your similar thread about default viewing experience makes it seem like you want an Instagram-style image browser rather than the link aggregator which Reddit and Lemmy actually are.
Isn’t the “tiling” view on PieFed like that? Link
I guess so. Every Lemmy app I’ve used also offers similar views.
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.
Thats funny, Im also 32 and completely happy with the default Lemmy UI. Definitely wouldnt use something like new Reddit. But the good thing is that there are so many different choices, and its possible to create instances with a different default UI.
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.
I’m not saying everyone should have the one I think is best.
I’ve said many times I don’t have the solution, it’s just painfully obvious that what we have now sucks. (goes against basic UX principles)
I’m saying the instances that care about not filtering out non tech savvy people, and that want to attract more users, should care and put some effort into this.
You’re taking zero choice away from people, All I’m asking for is better defaults and guidance
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
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.
This is me. Frankly, I’m surprised people are choosing to use the new UI, but I guess maybe they only discovered reddit when it had the new UI.
And they don’t have to join. I really don’t mean this in a dismissive way and respect their opinion. But why all this worrying about the need to have the fediverse dominate all social media? Maybe it’s meant to be this way: your vibe decides your tribe. My vibe isn’t commercial, toxic political talk, or influencers, thus my tribe is the fediverse instead of IG or Tiktok.
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.
Fuck the top comment. Old.Reddit is the only tolerable way to access that shithole. What “bells and whistles” do you want? It’s a fucking link aggregator.
I was on Sync for Reddit before going here, and checked out Lemmy as the devs switched platform. So the joke’s on them, my UX is basically identical.
That said, sucks that people shy away because of complexity.
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
