Scott JensonNov 9, 2022

There are two very different #UX observations about #mastodon:

1. Friction
The many UX problems that everyone likes to whine about

2. Value
That people are FLOCKING here in spite of this friction!

Stop missing the forest from the trees. In my career when people used a product with bad UX you *knew* you had a great product as it actually solved a need that was worth overcoming the problems.

Should we fix the UX problems? Of course! But this is a great place to start.

Show threadJan DNov 9, 2022
@scottjenson I find the UI pretty decent. My biggest problem was that I had no clue how to decide for a server – which is more of a…service design-ish problem. Its nice to have freedom of choice if you know how you need to choose, but if not, a defautl helps a lot!
Show threadMatti JärvinenNov 9, 2022

@simulo @scottjenson yeah, that's a real issue.

In a corporate world we would have a sit down with the people explaining the problems, with the service designers and the UX people.

Draw some ideas on the board do some A/B tests on ideas on paper and in the wild.

Analyze results and re-iterate over and over again.

How that can work completely on GitHub/Discord/whatever?

Show threadScott JensonNov 9, 2022
@nemeciii @simulo How to make this work for #FOSS is a very different topic, one which I've been working on but don't see any quick fixes there either. It mostly boils down to design maturity of the team (and if it doesn't have it, what can you do to nudge it in the right direction?)
Show threadMatti JärvinenNov 9, 2022

@scottjenson @simulo maybe @sesivany could have some answers on how to handle UX in open source collaboration or have someone else on who to ask for the same question.

I get how #OpenSource software works but how design and #UX flows are handled in open source and re-iterated to achieve the underlying potential is a complete mystery to me.

Show threadJiří Eischmann Nov 9, 2022
@nemeciii
A better person to answer that would be my colleague @jimmac who has been a member of the GNOME design team for like two decades.
Or @mairin who has been the lead designer in the Fedora Project for many years, too.
@scottjenson @simulo
Show threadMáirín Ní Dhufaigh ᚋᚐᚐᚔᚏᚔᚔᚅNov 9, 2022
@sesivany @nemeciii @jimmac @scottjenson @simulo If you're talking cross project collaboration, that's always a challenge - open source or not. But in terms of Mastodon server discovery? There's plenty of server directories out there. Isn't this a marketing problem of the directories not having enough visibility? How could we make them more seamlessly visible? Those are the types of questions you want to ask if that's the prob you want to tackle.
Show threadJan DNov 9, 2022

@mairin @sesivany @nemeciii @jimmac @scottjenson

I had no trouble finding servers or server listings. But I had no clue how to decide which one to pick.

Show threadScott JensonNov 9, 2022

@simulo @mairin @sesivany @nemeciii @jimmac

That's my point Jan. It's like picking between 3000 different jars of peanut butter. There's just no way to know which one to pick! This is especially true as most servers are 'just a guy in his basement'. That's fine for now but I'd argue for some type of standards to be put in place (like the Mastodon covenant but more so) so people feel some comfort that they are picking a reliable server.

Show threadMáirín Ní Dhufaigh ᚋᚐᚐᚔᚏᚔᚔᚅNov 10, 2022
@scottjenson @simulo @sesivany @nemeciii @jimmac I guess you really need to start with the problem you want to solve, and figure out the best way to solve it, build up support for that, and do it. I don't think open source makes a difference either way, it's the same process IMO
Show threadScott Jenson
@mairin @simulo @sesivany @nemeciii @jimmac
I agree. I'd start with questions, what are people looking for in a server? Community? Stability? A recommendation? Likely more than one answer. But I'm pretty sure the current solution doesn't work for any of them. Federation is amazing but it can also be overwhelming.
Nov 10, 2022 at 5:35amWeb
Show threadMáirín Ní Dhufaigh ᚋᚐᚐᚔᚏᚔᚔᚅNov 10, 2022
@scottjenson @simulo @sesivany @nemeciii @jimmac And that's particularly where the open source nature of it all does make a diff - you are not reduced to complaining into a vacuum as w proprietary products but are instead empowered to make that change if it's important to you to benefit all. But the basic design process/approach doesn't change