Fans of Tweetbot for Twitter and Ivory for Mastodon have reason to get excited all over again as the developers at Tapbots tease a Bluesky client called Phoenix.
I use both. Unfortunately, normal people still seem to struggle with instances / servers, which keeps masto’s user base lower. I’m not surprised Bsky is growing much faster these days. Too many people get confused during masto’s sign up / sign in flow. Ditto for Lemmy.
They used to get confused when ask to select a server, but now that they blindly get funneled into Masto.social, they get burned when they log into an existing account and are asked to enter a server that they didn’t know the selected. And there is no UX to recover / remember a forgotten server domain.
Every time there is a wave of interest in Lemmy or Masto, you always see confused people asking for basic account help in the comment threads.
UX designer here. People are dumber than you think.
I’ve seen a lot of people trip over it. There were a LOT of threads about it on Reddit and Twitter. The Masto gGmbH‘s folks also noticed this and they stream-lined their onboarding to dump most people into Masto.social and to skip server selection.
Problem is, people now get confused when they log into an existing account. They get to the “welcome back” screen, get asked to enter their server’s domain, they don’t know what it is, there is no UX to help people recall a forgotten server, and then people bail.
We know people forget passwords and usernames. Of course this was going to be a problem.
This is what happens when you start with architecture and don’t have a UX designer in the room before you write code.
I wasn’t asking genuinely about the people already here, we are here because we were willing to go through the red tape. The thought experiment was meant to highlight that we are the exception, most people would push.
Sure, but it’s a public benefit company.
I use both. Unfortunately, normal people still seem to struggle with instances / servers, which keeps masto’s user base lower. I’m not surprised Bsky is growing much faster these days. Too many people get confused during masto’s sign up / sign in flow. Ditto for Lemmy.
Do they struggle with instances or does Mastodon not have the corporate appeal that mass media prefers?
They used to get confused when ask to select a server, but now that they blindly get funneled into Masto.social, they get burned when they log into an existing account and are asked to enter a server that they didn’t know the selected. And there is no UX to recover / remember a forgotten server domain.
Every time there is a wave of interest in Lemmy or Masto, you always see confused people asking for basic account help in the comment threads.
That’s an incredibly low bar for people to not grasp and trip over.
UX designer here. People are dumber than you think.
I’ve seen a lot of people trip over it. There were a LOT of threads about it on Reddit and Twitter. The Masto gGmbH‘s folks also noticed this and they stream-lined their onboarding to dump most people into Masto.social and to skip server selection.
Problem is, people now get confused when they log into an existing account. They get to the “welcome back” screen, get asked to enter their server’s domain, they don’t know what it is, there is no UX to help people recall a forgotten server, and then people bail.
We know people forget passwords and usernames. Of course this was going to be a problem.
This is what happens when you start with architecture and don’t have a UX designer in the room before you write code.
You’re presented with two doors. One has red tape on it, the other says push. Which do you attempt to enter?
The one thats not going to fuck me over and make me find a new door in a few years when it enshittifies.
I wasn’t asking genuinely about the people already here, we are here because we were willing to go through the red tape. The thought experiment was meant to highlight that we are the exception, most people would push.