For #Elk, we are thinking about using "Mutual" instead of the "Follows you" label over the cover image plus "Unfollow" button of the official Mastodon Web client. Does everyone understand "Mutual" as "We follow each other" or do you think this could confuse some users?
@patak on #Upsapce we just label it “Friends”
@thatzacdavis interesting! Friends could be a bit too much for some people 🤔
It is true that Discord uses Friends too. I think mutual is more on point here though
@patak I think Instagram also uses it so that was the justification for us doing it in our app. I do find it a little confusing personally. It’s a touch UX situation trying to find a single word to describe that you follow each other.
@patak @thatzacdavis I like both "mutual" and "follows you", but "friends" does sound too personal
@patak I think it looks fine, mutual should be clear enough to folks who haven't seem the term yet.
@patak Oh hai 😊 I like “Mutual” but think a broader global audience may understand “Follows you” a little more easily fwiw.
@addyosmani the thing is that "Follows you" requires we add another label to indicate if you also "Follow" or not the person. Maybe with a good tooltip, it may be enough. I really like the clean single label ☺️. It is also hard to parse right now in the Mastodon UI, you have an "Unfollow" positive button when you are following someone, and then a "Follows you" label which above some cover images is hard to spot.
@patak That also makes sense. Given how adjusted users of birdapp were to changes over time, you could always ship “Mutuals” and refine if users don’t acclimate to it. I think both are good choices :)
@addyosmani ya, good point. So, the label should be "Mutuals" with an "s" at the end? My non-native English is playing games with me here, ha.
@patak In American English, I’ve heard “Mutuals” used colloquially in this context :)
@addyosmani @patak yeh +1 to this. It’s a really great intention but I think the language maybe too niche
@andy @patak Very much looking forward to trying out Elk as it comes together. Of all the clients I've seen so far, it feels the closest to birdsite UX-wise (in a a good way, getting to use muscle memory and all that) :) Good luck with the road forward!
@patak I think it's not clear what clicking "mutual" would do. Is it indicating the current state, or the action?
@IanVS it is a label with values "Mutual", "Following", "Follows you", and "Follow" (this last one we may need to review). Once you hover it duals as a button with "Unfollow" in red or "Follow"/"Follow back" if you aren't following the person.
@patak @IanVS How does it work on mobile?
I think most people will understand the term "mutuals", but it seems inconsistent to me if other states are expressed with "follow". Also if the button has two actions, follow and unfollow, these refer to my "follow" state in relation to that user, while "mutuals" mixes the user's follow state in relation to me with the "follow/unfollow" actions and ultimately my follow state, which it is not related to.
@patak @IanVS I'd suggest to either keep state and actions separate (e.g. a badge displaying the states "follows you", "following" and "follows you/following" or possibly "mutually following") or to keep the user's state separate from my state (e.g. by adding a badge for it), but mix my state with the actions (in the button label/state). Otherwise I think there's too much complexity. Reduce cognitive load, "don't make me think".
@runimo @IanVS your point for mobile is good. I think you are right, we may need separate label and button then 🤔
@patak shutupandtakemymoney.meme
@idan we were talking today with @sxzz that it would be interesting to have better previews for some common URLs... let's say hitting a .json endpoint for a GitHub URL, and rendering proper HTML with action buttons instead of the social image 👀
@patak I needed to translate it before I even read to the end of your post...
I hope this answers your question 
@Shini92 haha, I hope you aren't in the majority. We need a good tooltip it seems though.
@patak what about listen/listening instead of follow/following? 🤔 It has a more gentle and mindful connotation compared to follow which is much more attention seeking!
@chrisshank maybe... but that is probably already diverging quite a bit from the standard Mastodon terms. If we start all over, we could use "Interested" too
@patak feels like it could be a tiny bit confusing but 🤷
@patak Mutuals makes sense, but without the S it is confusing
@patak better to keep status and action separate.
IMHO text on buttons should always state the action they perform - "Unfollow" in this case.
@salvozappa yes, I'm thinking we should add a new toggle icon button next to this label to unfollow/follow. The current "change the text on hover" doesn't work for mobile. We may still try using "Mutuals" for the label and see how that works though. Some folks have expressed that it may be confusing, while others loved it.

@patak happy to hear you are taking this route!

Thank you for your response and kudos for the impressive work so far. 👍🏼