- cross-posted to:
- [email protected]
- cross-posted to:
- [email protected]
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?
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.
Anti Commercial-AI license
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.
What’s there to understand? Does the average person understand that reddit consists of a frontend written in a frontend framework that compiles to HTML, CSS, and JS? Do they understand that HTTPS is used to make the request between the client and server on port 443? Do they know that the request is processed by a back end connecting to postgresql and redis or memcache for faster responses? That most assets are probably delivered by a CDN?
Probably not. And why should they? They don’t need to understand how the fediverse works, nor do they have to understand how email works. All they need to do is select a server, create an account, and start interacting. Same as email.
There’s no mystery. The fediverse isn’t complicated unless you freak out and start realising that the entire internet is more complicated than the shiny, glossy thing on top of it - which doesn’t need to be understood to have simple interactions with.
Anti Commercial-AI license
Starting off way too obtuse and disconnected from reality to have a conversation. Later.
Isn’t this why apple is popular. It just picks everything for you.
I think the most important part to understand with lemmy is that the choice of server doesn’t matter that much because you can read and post on all the other servers as well. Unless you choose hexbear or whatever it is called these days. :)
But it really is a problem when people can’t be bothered to choose from more than exactly one. I mean if you can make a selection from several different brands of toilet paper in a supermarket then why is it so hard to choose a server?
My point exactly. How do you function in life if choice is too much for you to comprehend? Maybe people just need a website called Lemmy.org that redirects them to a random approved server and that’s it. “UX” problem solved.
Anti Commercial-AI license
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.
If selecting a server is too much, then directing them to a random on that fits their criteria should solve the problem. Which joinlemmy, joinmastodon, joinoixelfed, and so on do.
If even that is too much, then I’m totally fine without those people as I question what kind of stuff they’ll be saying.
And this isn’t even elitist. It’s not “you have to have the ActivityPub spec memorised” or even know what ActivityPub is. It’s like “which email host should I pick”. No deeper than that.
If Facebook and Apple have eroded people’s brains to the point where such a simple question cannot be answered without freaking out, then we’re in trouble.
Anti Commercial-AI license