If the fediverse is to be adopted by the masses, the onboarding experience needs to change. A new user can’t be presented with a choice of instances as part of signing up or at least the process of making the choice needs to dumbed down a lot. I don’t know how or if this can be solved, I just know as someone involved in app development and UX that the current experience won’t work.

My mother would not know how to handle this paragraph: “Lemmy.world is one node in a network of hundreds of Lemmy instances. Before you sign up here, take a moment to explore all the instances at https://lemmyverse.net/. You may find an instance with a regional or topical emphasis that speaks to you! Don’t worry about being left out; Lemmy instances are interconnected so users from each instance can participate with communities on other instances.”

For mass adoption it needs to be so simple that even non-techie older people can get through it without feeling like they might be doing something wrong.

  • Glitterkoe@lemmy.worldEnglish
    1·
    3 hours ago

    Well, it’s meant as an introductory paragraph. I think such a general paragraph should not go to those lengths since the vast majority won’t be facing that issue. Most large instances that you would recommend for first timers are federated well enough that at least the civilised part of Lemmy is very accessible. I think that with:

    • sensible defaults/suggestions
    • easy to understand intro
    • a help/link to a detailed article

    you cover enough for users who can’t be bothered, who want to be informed, and those who want to understand what’s going on behind the scenes.