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submitted 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) by TheArstaInventor@lemmy.world to c/fediverse@lemmy.world

As a strong supporter of open-source and community-funded projects like Lemmy, which prioritize serving users over investors, I believe Lemmy has significant potential, and that's why I am here. However, it is clear that its growth is nearing a plateau in its current form. Despite the surge in users following Reddit's API changes, Lemmy continues to primarily attract tech-savvy individuals, politically left-aligned users, and those accustomed to old Reddit. For Lemmy to reach the broader average general audience, meaningful changes are necessary.

The rise of Bluesky demonstrates the importance of ease of use and a user-friendly design. Its polished and familiar interface is a key reason for its growth and appeal as an alternative to platforms like X/Twitter. This same ease of use is what Mastodon lacked, leading to its initial hype fading quickly. The average user is unlikely to adapt to something that feels complicated or unfamiliar, and this challenge also applies to Lemmy.

As someone who started as an average Reddit user and became more tech-savvy over time, I can confidently say that first impressions matter. When users first visit lemmy.world, the default UI is often enough to discourage them from staying. Most will not explore the homepage sidebar to explore, figure out and switch to one of the alternative UIs available, which is unfortunate because a better UI could make a huge difference.

This is why I propose that large servers like lemmy.world adopt Photon UI as the default web interface. Photon is currently the best and most mature alternative UI, offering a visually appealing, modular design that feels familiar to users of new Reddit. It makes excellent use of screen space and provides customization options like compact and cozy views. Unlike some other alternative UIs, Photon is actively maintained and ready for widespread use, although in no way is it perfect, this can also help bring in more contributors to the project development.

While it is important to continue offering other UIs as options, I believe adopting Photon as the default UI could make Lemmy far more appealing to the average Reddit user. First impressions are crucial, and the current default UI has turned off many potential users. If we want Lemmy to succeed as a true Reddit alternative, we need to prioritize user experience and accessibility. Thankfully today, Lemmy still continues to be THE biggest Reddit alternative, while our userbase is still considerably smaller than Reddit, it's the biggest of any alternatives, and Lemmy continues to somewhat be in the spotlight for those seeking alternatives, we can't let growth stagnate, it's high time we make the platform more welcoming and appealing for the average joe.

EDIT: The image I attached is from photon.lemmy.world, which I just realized is using the outdated version of Photon, I have updated the image to the updated current photon version from phtn.app. There are a lot of improvements made.

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[-] 4Robato@lemmy.world 9 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

I don't think the problem is the UI. Fediverse is more complex by nature than a centralized platform.

You have to choose a server, then an app to visualize (not only online but on the phone too) and there's plenty of alternatives.

If everybody joined the same server we end up with a centralized system and if every large server has to use specific UI what's the point on decentralizing?

I also thought that fediverse had to try to be easier to use but the point is that it's more complicated precisely because the user has more power and hence has to do more decisions.

And I think people have to understand the basics of the fediverse, otherwise people will not stay precisely because it's more complicated. If I didn't care a bit I would be on Reddit not here and I'm currently using both because there's simply much more content there and hopefully with time I can use Lemmy more and less reddit. I'm willing to do the effort of slowly transitioning because I believe in this but people who doesn't care won't stick around.

[-] Blaze@feddit.org 8 points 2 months ago

Photon is currently the best and most mature alternative UI, offering a visually appealing, modular design that feels familiar to users of new Reddit.

What about Tesseract?

https://dubvee.org/

This is why I propose that large servers like lemmy.world adopt Photon UI as the default web interface.

That's something to be discussed per server. You should maybe ask LW staff to open a poll on their announcements community

[-] rglullis@communick.news 7 points 2 months ago
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[-] mystik@lemmy.world 7 points 2 months ago

/me pines for the days of protocol over interface. NNTP + killfiles were the bees knees. Then we could just all pick our own interface to connect to any lemmy host.

[-] quink@lemmy.ml 7 points 2 months ago
  1. With what I think are near enough default settings, Voyager shows me about 9 stories. It doesn't feel cramped and the layout is regular, everything lines up.
  2. With what I think are near enough default settings, my browser here shows me 14 stories, with a good accessible font size by default and me easily zooming out to 80%. It doesn't feel cramped and the layout is regular, everything lines up.
  3. I can see 2 stories in that screenshot. Why would I want to have something that's at least 5 times worse, it feels cramped and parts of it line up I guess?
[-] ArtemisimetrA@lemmy.duck.cafe 6 points 2 months ago
[-] souperk@reddthat.com 5 points 2 months ago

One thing to consider here is that photon as an spa does not offer great support search engines. Which can help drive organic traffic to lemmy. While, some may see it as a net benefit, from your point of view it's an great disadvantage.

[-] Zementid@feddit.nl 5 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

I like it simple. I use Jerbora on Android and can't be happier. I use duckduckgo browser and it's YouTube mode, so I have no ads, cookies, trackers or popups. It's actually close to perfect.

Compared to e.g. Discord, I feel like wasting most screen real estate for static eye candy info,... no thanks.

[-] moseschrute@lemmy.world 4 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

I’m working on my own Lemmy client that I’m hoping will be both a better UI, but also universally better as an app (phone and tablet), MacOS app, and on the web. Voyager provides a web version, but it’s not optimized for larger screens.

My app will deliver the best experience on all screen sizes and will take the best of Reddit, Voyager, etc.

I’m 14 days in lol but if anyone is interested please DM me. I’m happy to share what I’m working on, but I just ask you have realistic expectations as this will likely be 6+ month project to deliver something that can actually compete with existing clients.

[-] netvor@lemmy.world 4 points 2 months ago

I believe adopting Photon as the default UI could make Lemmy far more appealing to the average Reddit user.

How are you supporting that belief? Any data? Any A/B testing?

I don't want to sound too harsh, but you have sort of marked yourself as a representative of "average OG ex-redditor" or "average joe". Actually, you refer to "average" quite a lot. But honestly, without any supporting evidence, it's just words to make the proposal more appealing or relevant. If we remove all this cruft (which might be supported by anecdotal study, but that should barely count, if even), what arguments are here that actually remain?

Don't get me wrong, if you said that you like "something like Photon" more than the current default UI, then great! It is awesome that other alternatives exist and when people find them, it's great to share the review. (It's how I have discovered so much of great software!) But then again, it's all subjective, right? In your proposal, you seem to tend to state lot of these subjective opinions as if they were objective, which to me makes the proposal just far less convincing.

[-] secret300@lemmy.sdf.org 3 points 2 months ago

But I like the current UI...

[-] avieshek@lemmy.world 3 points 2 months ago
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this post was submitted on 12 Dec 2024
362 points (100.0% liked)

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