I’ve tried both [Lemmy and PieFed], and the UX is incredibly unintuitive and unpleasant. The main problem is that it’s quite hard to discover content you want while avoiding content you don’t, Bluesky at least has really good custom feeds that are easy to add (the default feed sucks). Another big issue is the general site layout, it’s hard to figure out how to do things as simple as saving a post for later or how to go back to the feed without being redirected back to the post I’m trying to exit.
Maybe they didn’t see the “Feeds” feature in PieFed? The top navigation menus in PieFed are a bit messy. Although shareable blocklists could be cool too, or maybe toxic?
That’s excluding the horrible lack of contrast most frontends use, which makes reading and parsing the site elements unnecessarily difficult (no Lemmy, grey text on a grey background is not good for readability).
I like the Lemmy colors, but maybe it should be easier to change, because they might like the darkly-pureblack theme.
Fediverse feels slower, but not in a good way. More of a ‘if I don’t use this for a week, I’ll see new things’. If I log in after 2 or 3 days, I’ll scroll for 10 minutes and see the stuff I saw last time.
Maybe this is a UX issue of not finding the right feed they would like.
I’ve tried using lemmy and have exactly the same issue. After blocking all the politics stuff, left wing meme stuff and tankie stuff there’s bugger all remaining. Even with all the blocks I’ve made it just seems to be a bunch of toxic left wing people calling each other fascist because of some minor difference in opinion.
I also want nsfw stuff now and then. I hate how censored the internet has become, at least with reddit if I want to see a bit of porn, I can.
Again maybe a UX issue of not presenting what communities they could subscribe to.
I tried twice to join those forums within the Fediverse and I can’t get past the captcha test. The fact that you need approval to validate your access doesn’t seem designed to encourage you to recommend it.
The captchas on Lemmy are AWFUL, I can’t do them either.
(that’s the “Medium” difficulty)
Lemmy v1.0 is adding the ability to do invites, so maybe there will be an invite-only instance that gets some momentum, that could be cool. Invite sites seems like a cool old-internet type of culture.
The fediverse stuff is way too complicated for me, Reddit is very easily accessible and actually has active communities for the topics I’m interested in.
Of course these are naturally going to be all negative because they’re users that bounced off the Threadiverse, but there’s probably hints to what can be improved
More of a ‘if I don’t use this for a week, I’ll see new things’. If I log in after 2 or 3 days, I’ll scroll for 10 minutes and see the stuff I saw last time.
I had this exact experience. The solution? Just loud subscribe to stuff and now I have 80 notifications a day about new posts which I struggle to keep up with. Clearly the fediverse isn’t as inactive as I had the impression from just browsing it.
The captchas on Lemmy are AWFUL, I can’t do them either.
Do all Lemmy frontends use those captchas? Might be a reason to recommend a different one by default.
I do have to say, I bounced off Lemmy and Piefed mostly due to their UI and UX. I probably wouldn’t have joined the fediverse if I didn’t come across a kbin.social recommendation back then. Mbin is much more up my alley, though not ideal either, but it has worked out for me so far.
Captchas are served by the server, not a frontend thing. Otherwise they would be pretty useless for spam protection.
I see, makes sense. Didn’t think that far.
I dont remember the different frontends since I just voyager on iphone these days, think phtn and tesseract were good, maybe one had a controversy
Most of the UI complaints can be solved by using a different front-end. I guess that should be emphasized more when trying to convince people to try it. If any of those people never used old.reddit, I doubt they’ll like reddit either if that was the interface.
They do have a point about seeing the same content. Maybe there could be a button where all the posts to the point the user has scrolled to get marked as read and archived for them. And then their front page is filled with different posts.
Bro Reddit has horrible UI/UX
I agree, but what do I know? I’ve only got a master’s in UX.
Agreed it sucks, but people are used to it? Or the pain points don’t hurt casual users? I’m not sure, but either way that doesn’t mean Lemmy/PieFed can’t be improved
Even with all the blocks I’ve made it just seems to be a bunch of toxic left wing people calling each other fascist because of some minor difference in opinion.
Lol. This part rings so true!
Are they using a 3rd party app like Voyager? It makes a big difference.
maybe but this is accurate
Even with all the blocks I’ve made it just seems to be a bunch of toxic left wing people calling each other fascist because of some minor difference in opinion
lol
most of them no, which is maybe another issue of not showing that’s an option, but really the default UIs need to be good
The reddit UI sucked in the past and sucks more now. The main reason that reddit grew was because of the incredible apps that 3rd parties made like RiF.
Lemmy now has a bunch of mature and efficient apps that are easy to use.
Blue alien was the one reddit bought it, made it their official app and ruined it
RiF is the worst example possible of better UI and “incredible”, it was always the ugliest and least nice to use reddit app by far, IMO.
I seriously don’t understand how anyone could stand it, it was like trying to use some shitty win95 shovelware compared to most others. Easily one of the ugliest apps I’ve ever seen too.
I use Voyager and I feel like it’s easy enough to use and has a great UI.
Sometimes I just use Lemmy with Firefox and that’s when I feel a tad lost. It’s still useable if you put the effort, but it’s clearly not as intuitive as Voyager.
So maybe the Lemmy browser UI should be improved. Also it would be good to have an official Lemmy app for mobile phones as people can get lost with choices.
The problem with the Fediverse is always the onboarding and understanding the basics. Peertube or Lemmy are great but really intimidating for non geeky people.
Also the lack of some content can be problematic. On Lemmy I can find almost everything I want even if some comminities are almost dead, but on Peertube I can only satisfy 1 out of my 4 point of interest (Basketball, Cars and game reviews being the missing one and Linux being the fullfiled one).
Even if they aren’t. The interface isn’t that bad. More just different. It takes some adjustment. Although there 100% is an old threaded like interface for lemmy at least. But that’s an issue for Discovery and presentation.
People will complain no matter what.
The Fediverse does require a little effort, as there is no algorithm spoonfeeding you content. Personally, I like that the barrier of entry requires some human effort as it feels like a natural filter for the sorts of elements we don’t want integrating here from platforms like Reddit.
They called it the idiot filter back in the old reddit days
If I log in after 2 or 3 days, I’ll scroll for 10 minutes and see the stuff I saw last time.
This is the whole reason I use Lemmy! I hate the endless algorithmic slop feeds designed to ensnare users for as long as possible. Let me reach the end! Let me see how posts I’ve already seen have developed! Let me be done with a website for any amount of time!!!
I think it’s the default as “active” that screws people up. They think it’s stale because they’ve probably not seen any new content for hours.
maybe also because a lot of instances default to “Local” instead of “All”
I’ve tried both [Lemmy and PieFed], and the UX is […]
That’s excluding the horrible lack of contrast most frontends use, which makes […]
IMO both of the UIs are going to feel weird and limited to someone coming from Reddit / Instagram etc. I find that custom front ends like Photon are a lot better for newcomers.
I know Lemmy is working on a completely new frontend.
Fediverse feels slower, but not in a good way. More of a ‘if I don’t use this for a week, I’ll see new things’. If I log in after 2 or 3 days, I’ll scroll for 10 minutes and see the stuff I saw last time.
I have a constant flow of new content, and see something new every time I open it (which is often, after years of having that muscle memory from reddit).
I’m subscribed to a lot of communities + using scaled sort
I also want nsfw stuff now and then. I hate how censored the internet has become, at least with reddit if I want to see a bit of porn, I can.
This one was weird to me. I remember seeing complaints that reddit has been banning and shutting down its NSFW side, while it’s accessible here.
I tried twice to join those forums within the Fediverse and I can’t get past the captcha test. The fact that you need approval to validate your access doesn’t seem designed to encourage you to recommend it.
I want Lemmy to support HCaptcha
Past that, most people are ok with applications once you explain why they’re necessary.
Also a lot of social media platforms started out as invite only as marketing strategy lol
Most issues aren’t “real” issues, Lemmy and PieFed have great feature-sets. They’re issues with UX/presentation and onboarding.
honestly compared to mastodon I can check Lemmy all day and see new things that are actually interesting.
I’m not a big fan of Mastodon, but I never liked microblogging in the first place
I’ve tried both [Lemmy and PieFed], and the UX is incredibly unintuitive and unpleasant.
Have they forgotten about old reddit’s “idiot filter” UI ?
the problem is theres barely content on lemmy. while reddit has the SLOPFLEST, and niche content combined.
