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1. Embed this notice
   Paul Cantrell (inthehands@hachyderm.io)'s status on Monday, 01-May-2023 10:45:26 JST Paul Cantrell

   • Erin Kissane

   @kissane hits the nail on the head:

   “I have a suspicion that a lot of the defensive maneuvering on Mastodon is happening because Mastodon fans know that the network absolutely cannot compete on user friendliness and basic social functionality”

   💯
   https://mstdn.social/@kissane/110290112155360704

   • Embed this notice
     Paul Cantrell (inthehands@hachyderm.io)'s status on Monday, 01-May-2023 10:51:49 JST Paul Cantrell

     in reply to

     This piece is just a relentless barrage of truth bombs.

     https://erinkissane.com/blue-skies-over-mastodon

   • Embed this notice
     Paul Cantrell (inthehands@hachyderm.io)'s status on Monday, 01-May-2023 11:32:29 JST Paul Cantrell

     in reply to

     • Jons Mostovojs

     @jonn
     This is not “just throwing opinions at each other.” We already have voluminous input — actual user data — from people who’ve abandoned Masto either at the front door or on the first walk around the block, and said in very clear terms why they did. Yes, methodical data collection is better, but there’s plenty of anecdotal to get us started. And it’s surprisingly consistent. In particular…

   • Embed this notice
     Jons Mostovojs (jonn@social.doma.dev)'s status on Monday, 01-May-2023 11:32:30 JST Jons Mostovojs

     in reply to

     • Erin Kissane

     @inthehands no references though. Also, I made a mastodon account on mastodon social while brushing my teeth. The only bit where the UX is hot garbage is when someone finds a toot outside their server and wants to interact with it. But by then retention happened, I think. Anyway, as @kissane said, we need to run iterations, experiments, collect reports from users. Otherwise it's just throwing opinions at each other, which is unhelpful.

   • Embed this notice
     Paul Cantrell (inthehands@hachyderm.io)'s status on Monday, 01-May-2023 11:34:52 JST Paul Cantrell

     in reply to

     • Jons Mostovojs

     @jonn
     …onboarding frequently comes up as a pain point. So you brushed your teeth while doing it? Yay for you! It’s not a problem for you. But “it’s easy for me” is not a useful response to reports of usability friction, not ever.

     I always tell my students that the first step of user testing is “shut the fuck up and watch.” That’s what Masto should have been doing since November.

   • Embed this notice
     Paul Cantrell (inthehands@hachyderm.io)'s status on Monday, 01-May-2023 11:36:33 JST Paul Cantrell

     in reply to

     • John Breen

     @jab01701mid Literalistic nit-picking of one decontextualized phrase from the article is not the same thing as actually understanding the article.

   • Embed this notice
     John Breen (jab01701mid@universeodon.com)'s status on Monday, 01-May-2023 11:36:34 JST John Breen

     in reply to

     • Erin Kissane

     @inthehands @kissane However, I must note that despite its "user friendliness" issues, it certainly seems to offer "basic social functionality”. I and lots of others have been proving that, right ?
     Or are we talking about Quote-Tweeting again ?

   • Embed this notice
     Paul Cantrell (inthehands@hachyderm.io)'s status on Monday, 01-May-2023 11:54:33 JST Paul Cantrell

     in reply to

     ☝️ Re the above, in case it’s not clear:

     I want Mastodon to succeed.

     I am in no rush to join Bluesky, or any other shiny new single-owner surveillance capitalism network. No rush.

     That’s my choice. I want everyone to have that choice.

     It’s clear, however, that not everyone finds that they •do• have that choice. And they’re telling us why — if we have ears to listen.

     If Mastodon doesn’t learn how to get serious about UX, and yesterday, it will go the way of Usenet and RSS.

   • Embed this notice
     Paul Cantrell (inthehands@hachyderm.io)'s status on Monday, 01-May-2023 11:56:24 JST Paul Cantrell

     in reply to

     • Jons Mostovojs
     • Fish Id Wardrobe

     @fishidwardrobe @jonn
     Mmmm, I dunno, when somebody says “I got confused when I had to choose an instance and gave up” or “When I started posted, I got barraged with replies with racial slurs and photos of lynchings and the mods did nothing and I couldn’t figure out how to stop it”…I’m just going to say those anecdotes are actionable enough to start the iterative design process.

   • Embed this notice
     Fish Id Wardrobe (fishidwardrobe@mastodon.me.uk)'s status on Monday, 01-May-2023 11:56:25 JST Fish Id Wardrobe

     in reply to

     • Jons Mostovojs

     @inthehands @jonn This, but the problem comes when you stop with what the user says the problem is.

     Forty years of debugging user problems makes me absolutely certain: when a user says X is a problem, you're having a good day if X is really the problem. You need to drill down – for example by finding out exactly what they did. *Why* was that a problem for them?

     This isn't possible with second hand anecdotes, of course.

   • Embed this notice
     Paul Cantrell (inthehands@hachyderm.io)'s status on Monday, 01-May-2023 12:04:28 JST Paul Cantrell

     in reply to

     • Jons Mostovojs
     • Fish Id Wardrobe

     @fishidwardrobe @jonn
     There are many problems that are not solvable in code, but are solvable in process. Moderation problems certainly are one.

     In the cases in question (there were multiple!), yes, users were reported; no, mods did not deal with it.

     Still, yes, you’re exactly right: somebody needs to follow up, do a “5 whys,” solve some solvable problems, and repeat. That willingness to investigate and •listen• is what’s been lacking.

   • Embed this notice
     Fish Id Wardrobe (fishidwardrobe@mastodon.me.uk)'s status on Monday, 01-May-2023 12:04:29 JST Fish Id Wardrobe

     in reply to

     • Jons Mostovojs

     @inthehands @jonn That second one is hella actionable. But to really fix it you need to know how it happened. Has the offending user ever been reported? What did the mods do? Are the mods doing *anything*? If not, why not?

     This is assuming we can fix this in code, or even help: some problems are just … people being shitty?

   • Embed this notice
     Going T. Maine (going_to_maine@mastodon.social)'s status on Monday, 01-May-2023 12:09:18 JST Going T. Maine

     in reply to

     @inthehands I hope it can be turned into an actual researched post mortem by someone. Anecdata, but I've seen various "how to Mastodon" guides float around twitter - just the sort of thing the author is bemoaning. I'vem also seen people not want to join Mastodon specifically *because* there's so much noise about how masto/the fediverse should be organized. We have such small windows on social media experiences, they must be quantified!

   • Embed this notice
     Paul Cantrell (inthehands@hachyderm.io)'s status on Monday, 01-May-2023 12:09:18 JST Paul Cantrell

     in reply to

     • Going T. Maine

     @going_to_maine
     Quantified, sure, but even just sustained, focused attention to anecdotes would be a vast improvement here.

   • Embed this notice
     Paul Cantrell (inthehands@hachyderm.io)'s status on Monday, 01-May-2023 12:32:54 JST Paul Cantrell

     in reply to

     • Paul Souders

     @axoplasm Same

   • Embed this notice
     Paul Souders (axoplasm@pdx.social)'s status on Monday, 01-May-2023 12:32:55 JST Paul Souders

     in reply to

     @inthehands damn, I feel seen by this

     I miss the hell out of Usenet *and* RSS

   • Embed this notice
     Paul Cantrell (inthehands@hachyderm.io)'s status on Monday, 01-May-2023 12:43:19 JST Paul Cantrell

     in reply to

     • HistoPol (#HP) 🥥 🌴
     • Paul Souders

     @HistoPol @axoplasm Yeah, it’s a great feature! RSS still exists of course. Podcasts! And really the podcasting ecosystem is a great example of what serious UX work around an open, federated protocol can achieve.

   • Embed this notice
     HistoPol (#HP) 🥥 🌴 (histopol@mastodon.social)'s status on Monday, 01-May-2023 12:43:20 JST HistoPol (#HP) 🥥 🌴

     in reply to

     • Paul Souders

     @inthehands @axoplasm

     Learned this about #Mastodon and #RSS the other day:

     https://mastodon.social/@docpop/109451219642843772

   • Embed this notice
     Paul Cantrell (inthehands@hachyderm.io)'s status on Tuesday, 02-May-2023 06:45:11 JST Paul Cantrell

     in reply to

     A surprising number of people in the replies don’t realize that they — we, all of us — are examples of survivorship bias.

     “Well, the Mastodon UX worked for •me•!” I mean, duh. Would you be replying to me here if it didn’t?! That is complete non-information, my good people.

   • Embed this notice
     Paul Cantrell (inthehands@hachyderm.io)'s status on Tuesday, 02-May-2023 06:46:19 JST Paul Cantrell

     in reply to

     Rochko appears to be getting it:

     “We believe it’s important for Mastodon to be good as a product on its own merits, and not just because of its ideology. If we only attract people who already care about decentralization, our ability to make decentralization mainstream becomes that much harder. Making the onboarding process as easy as possible helps new users get past the sign-up process and more quickly engage with others.”

     https://blog.joinmastodon.org/2023/05/a-new-onboarding-experience-on-mastodon/

   • Embed this notice
     Tom Bellin :picardfacepalm: (tob@hachyderm.io)'s status on Tuesday, 02-May-2023 07:38:47 JST Tom Bellin :picardfacepalm:

     in reply to

     @inthehands Except their answer to the problem is that every new user who signs up for mastodon starts on their server.

     That's... not great.

   • Embed this notice
     Paul Cantrell (inthehands@hachyderm.io)'s status on Tuesday, 02-May-2023 13:39:54 JST Paul Cantrell

     in reply to

     • Tom Bellin :picardfacepalm:

     @tob No, it’s not great, but I agree that it’s better than a hard barrier to entry (which the current process is for many).

   • Embed this notice
     Paul Cantrell (inthehands@hachyderm.io)'s status on Friday, 05-May-2023 01:01:49 JST Paul Cantrell

     in reply to

     • Erin Kissane
     • David

     @davidm @kissane
     “But also the people arguing against Bluesky aren't wrong” ← Well…yes, and duh. The whole reason I'm boosting conversation about Mastodon UX is that I believe there is benefit for individuals and society in having social media systems not controlled by a single actor, and I ••don’t want barriers erected around that choice••.

     Too many people on here dismiss UX as being about making things “shiny” and “slick.” That misses the whole damned point by a mile.

   • Embed this notice
     David (davidm@toot.community)'s status on Friday, 05-May-2023 01:01:50 JST David

     in reply to

     • Erin Kissane

     @inthehands @kissane It's not wrong. But also the people arguing against Bluesky aren't wrong in my opinion. It may be slick but I think Twitter has been a net negative for the world. I suspect bluesky will be the same.

     As to mastodon not making changes, I think it comes down to manpower and money, more than the will to change. And most of the people complaining about bluesky aren't going to be devs or UX experts so I don't realistically know what you can expect them to do to improve mastodon.