Comment by Gareth321 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by Gareth321 | Hacker News Reader

Every time these alternative/privacy focused/decentralised social media platforms appear they absolutely BUTCHER the UX. I thought "oh cool, let's sign up!"

1. I click "sign up." So far so good.

2. I am redirected to something called "Mastodon." No idea what this is. Nothing about it on the previous page. Is this a bug? Do I trust it? No options to sign up here. Only "get the app" and "find a server." I'm on my PC and don't need an app so I guess I find a server?

3. Now I'm presented with a list of servers. What on EARTH am I meant to do with this? Does each person get their own server? Do my friends all have to sign up on the same server? None of this makes any sense. I just want to post cute pictures of my cats! I'm now three layers deep into some kind of bizarre sign up process. I'm out. This is absurd.

For context, I run a team of developers building cloud services. There is almost ZERO chance that an ordinary person will follow these steps or use this service.

This needs one button to sign up, asking for exactly one piece of data: their email address. After that, they should be automatically redirected to the portal to begin using the service immediately. This clusterfuck was obviously designed by developers without a care in the world for regular users.

On the linked page:

> Where can I register?

> EU Voice is open for registrations only to EU institutions, body and agencies. However, you can still interact with EU Voice from many other compatible platforms. The Mastodon developers maintain a list of Mastodon platforms open for registration.

Does their response to that FAQ really answer the question? It has me slightly baffled.

Why would you expect to be able to sign up to "the official ActivityPub microblogging platform of the EU institutions, bodies and agencies (EUIs)"? The link could offer some explanation, but the idea is to redirect you to the main project's page where you can pick an open instance. This one obviously wouldn't be open.

> Why would you expect to be able to sign up to "the official ActivityPub microblogging platform of the EU institutions, bodies and agencies (EUIs)"?

Maybe because of that CTA "register" button in the top right corner of the page (left to the "sign in" button) ?

Mastodon is a community effort, and as such members of the community will work on stuff like UX. I’m not saying that you’re wrong, but rather contribute back instead of slamming a (very advanced and usable) project down just because your registration experience was bad.

This is open source, not a company with billions to spend on UX: they do what they can.

The point is that these open source initiatives are exactly competing on UX with billion-dollar companies, and that they will continue to lose.

> This is open source, not a company with billions to spend on UX: they do what they can.

This is not an excuse, all it takes to have a decent -or even a good UX- is one person asking the right questions and following up by interviewing a few folks during the sign up process.

It could be done in less than 2 hours or during a coffee break.

Getting the right experience and setting aside the time to do it is just business as usual for any product owner, even if they work during they free time.

Well if you want to do that, I’m sure they’ll appreciate your inputs. I would if I could.

I’m sure this new influx of users will bring many UX designers into the space, and the improvements will be tangible.

I think we need to better distinguish between comments about the current state of things (like GP) and comments about the future (like yours). GP is saying that currently the UX sucks, and this matters for people who want to use a social platform right now (think: non-programmers, technically challenged people, the mainstream, etc). Only enthusiasts are going to want to suffer through all the research and hurdles necessary to use to Mastodon because they think it'll be better in the future

Reply on news.ycombinator.com