cross-posted from: https://lemm.ee/post/55413416

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?

  • AnonomousWolf@lemm.eeOPEnglish
    81·
    14 hours ago

    Lemmy has good UI, the defaults set are just bad and most people will give up before discovering Photon etc.

    Something like https://phtn.app/ really should be the default

    • IninewCrowEnglish
      3·
      6 hours ago

      I also prefer the existing UI on Lemmy … it’s simple, straight to the point and no bells or whistles. I want to read content and have conversations … not look at how pretty everything is.

      I was getting a bit bored with the default UI and I thought I would give the alternatives like Photon a try … it only made me realize how much I enjoy the default UI on a PC using Firefox.

      KISS … Keep It Simple Stupid

      I’m here for the content and people, not in looking at a fancy layout with unique fonts or colors.

    • Blaze@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
      16·
      13 hours ago

      Counterpoint: there are some communities here who moved from Reddit because their sub was banned. I’m not going to tell which ones to avoid brigading, but let’s just say that they have a very average tech level. And average for the general population, not Lemmy.

      They do here just fine. Someone posted a guide on their sub with three steps

      • register on the instance the community is logged
      • install Voyager
      • subscribe to the community

      The community has been active for more than 6 months now, and doing just fine.

      Sync and Boost were literally clones from their Reddit versions. Desktop interface isn’t the best, but desktop users are supposedly more tech savvy than mobile, so having a p.instance name for Photon, Alexandrite and Tesseract in the sidebar is acceptable (eventually pinned post for new joiners).

      People are always going to complain about stuff

      • defederation breaks the platform (the vast majority of instances are still federated)
      • interface is bad (see Sync and Boost)
      • there’s no content (there’s enough generic content, of course niche content is on Reddit, but forums are not marriage, you can go to multiple places at the same time)
      • devs are tankies (they can’t do anything on other instances)
      • instances are going to shut down (most of them are funded via donations)

      I made a post on Reddit a while ago if people are interested https://old.reddit.com/r/RedditAlternatives/comments/1fmuk7o/post_to_address_the_usual_criticism_about_lemmy/

      • IninewCrowEnglish
        2·
        6 hours ago

        I got onto Reddit about ten years ago and only after I had heard about the site from multiple sources frequently. I’m technically minded and I know how to use a computer and navigate social media but even then, I was hesitant about using Reddit. Even once I got on, I had to stumble around, get into chat fights with people because I wasn’t posting or commenting properly or in the wrong place in the wrong way and with the wrong group. As a new user without any guidance or help, I had to go wandering around on my own to figure things out but eventually I did. I even got it to the point of moderating a couple of my own subreddits. It took me a while to get used to it before I bailed on that site with the first Rexit in 2023.

        I think most people migrating to the fediverse will be the same way. They’ll be curious, they’ll log on, they’ll hate it, they’ll find it difficult, they’ll mess up and eventually they’ll figure it out on their own because they want to. And through all those headaches of getting started in the fediverse, they’ll be more likely to stay long term because they had to really work at building a space for themselves here.

      • Wxnzxn@lemmy.mlEnglish
        8·
        13 hours ago

        People are always going to complain about stuff

        I cannot emphasise this enough - yes, there are real problems, too. But our senses might be overtuned to find reasons of “why don’t people join.” One big part of the reality is - most people don’t like unfamiliar things and will rationalise their intuitive disliking with any arguments, often even ones they haven’t experienced themselves, but heard about.

        Again - not saying there aren’t problems that need addressing, but there’s a real risk of needlessly internalising every bad thing said about Lemmy, when it may sometimes just be unfounded, intuitive dislike instead of proper thought out critique.

        • Blaze@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
          9·
          13 hours ago

          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.

    • Blaze@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
      4·
      13 hours ago

      Something like https://phtn.app/ really should be the default

      Disclaimer: Photon is great and the dev does a fantastic job. Also, the beta is open, please give them feedback on [email protected]

      However, there as still issues induced by not using the default UI. One of the instances I used added photon as p.instance for a while

      Photon was still in early stages, and there was a bug preventing it to load for some people (Firefox users IIRC). In the end the admin switched to Tesseract.

      https://lemdro.id/ has photon as a Default, but it took them a while to the latest version, for quite some time it wasn’t ideal. I would still go to https://l.lemdro.id/ just because the Comments view was available, or because some other info was missing/hidden.

      Lemmy releases new versions quite regularly, and there are usually a few bugs. Photon development is independent, and the Photon dev has to catch-up with those. Add admins sometimes limited availability to the mix and the experience can really become subpar.