Matthew Lyon
Over the past few months I’ve been putting my UX Interviewing hat on and helping @jenniferplusplus’s Letterbook project, by talking to a variety of people doing moderation work, largely in the Fedi space
This is the first step towards designing interfaces specifically to tackle moderation challenges, but we learned a *lot* and I typically summarize my interviews anyway, and we think those learnings are worth sharing:
https://letterbook.com/blog/post/2024/11/18/moderation-tooling-research.html
Emelia 👸🏻
@mattly @jenniferplusplus something that might interest you, which is a recent change I'm working on for Mastodon is expanding the moderation notes capabilities to more places. So, for starters, Instances: https://github.com/mastodon/mastodon/pull/31529
But also there is Appeals and maybe blocked email domains, hashtags, and IP rules. All tbd though.
Matthew Lyon
I’ll also put it out there that this sort of “UX/UI/Prototyping/ The Human Part of Software Design / especially for technical/nuanced problems” is what I consult for, and I have availability
Matthew Lyon
while writeups like this are sort of a byproduct of my process (writing is a way of honing thoughts), I’ve found repeatedly they accomplish two things:
1, illustrating to stakeholders just how bad a particular problem is
2, and this gives me great personal satisfaction, helping a bunch of people who *care* and feel neglected feel like they’ve been heard
This is a form of social work, but it exists nearly everywhere in places that build software
Matthew Lyon
One of the reasons I decided to consult instead of go back into a salaried role after my previous employer was shut down is that I’ve found, repeatedly, that management often has *big feels* about anyone with an “engineering” title actually *talking* to practitioners: “Stay in your lane"
Sometimes you need the people asking questions of the practitioners to have a deep understanding of the technical issues involved, because *those matter a lot* in figuring out what’s possible/feasible to build
Matthew Lyon
the other reason I chose to pursue consulting is because this sort of social research/discovery work, and the design that follows, very often leads to immense conflicts with engineers who have social capital with other engineers
by challenging their assumptions *and* being able to speak their language, I’ve committed the gravest of sins: prioritizing something not purely technical
*that* is perhaps the biggest source of burnout I’ve had in salaried jobs
Matthew Lyon
I haven’t done anything like this in public / for open source before, mostly because of time & dealing w/ burnout from the salaried job,
but also because I get the sense that many people steering OSS projects aren’t going to welcome the social research/discovery work for the same reasons
There are very few OSS projects that take interface design seriously, and I think this is the main reason you don’t get more designers contributing to those projects
Matthew Lyon
@tclark yeah, unfortunately it seems the vast majority of places where software is the product have taken on these cookie-cutter roles because that’s how it’s done or that’s how the big companies do it
and I mean, shipping software is hard enough as it is, why reinvent the management wheel?
(the answer “because the existing management wheel sucks” is not acceptable)
Timothy Clark
@mattly Stupid management has those feels. Smart management understands that silos are artificial, sometimes necessary evils, but should not just be accepted as "the way things are done." Cargo cult management is everywhere, though. I'm not saying I'm a great manager but a more philosophical approach beats dogmatism nine times out of ten.
Jenniferplusplus
@mattly for the record, I really do appreciate how big and valuable a gift it is that you're doing this work
Matthew Lyon
@jenniferplusplus it’s part of what needs to be done if this space is to eventually flourish, and I want to see it flourish, and I’m happy to have found a place I can contribute this type of work where it feels welcome
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