When people are told about Lemmy and look for it in a search engine, join-lemmy.org is one of the first pages that comes up. Here they should be able to find out what Lemmy is, and be able to register an account to start posting.
At the moment this still seems too complicated, so I’m looking for your suggestions to improve it:
- On the main page, is the text relevant and up to date or should anything be changed?
- How about the instance selection wizard (click “join a server” on the homepage), which lets you select topics and languages to select instances. Do the current options make sense?
- The instance list itself, is there any information missing, or potential design improvements?
- And the list of apps, what can be done here? For one thing the data is rarely updated, so we would appreciate pull requests.
- Any other suggestions you may have.
Since yesterday I already made a couple of improvements:
- Use biased random for instance list, so large instances are always near the top
- Rename Join to Sign Up in instance list
- Fix icon overflows by using inline-flex (by @dessalines)
- Add button to visit random instance (not merged yet)
Edit: Here is a draft for some changes to the frontpage:
https://github.com/LemmyNet/joinlemmy-site/pull/524
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Also it would be neat if instance admins could automatically set a certain set of “subscribed instances/communities” and “blocked instances/communities” for each new user that signs up on their instance. That would make it easier for instances to give themselves a certain “flavor” so users have an easier time finding interesting stuff.
Yes, theres an open issue for this: https://github.com/LemmyNet/lemmy/issues/6154
that’s great :D
How about the instance selection wizard (click “join a server” on the homepage), which lets you select topics and languages to select instances. Do the current options make sense?
I do think the “topic”/“language” selection screens make sense overall.
Also what i noticed is that on http://join-lemmy.org/ when you select certain topics (like “Art/literature” and “german speaking”), then the resulting instance list is empty. It might be wise to show at least one instance for every search query, even if it’s not 100% fit. For example, at least display one generic-topic instance for your language or one english-language instance for your topic.
Yes the topics are not ideal, opened an issue about this: https://github.com/LemmyNet/joinlemmy-site/issues/540
One user told me they got to https://join-lemmy.org/docs/users/01-getting-started.html when they tried to sign up instead of to https://join-lemmy.org/ so maybe it would be good to have an easily-visible link there that brings you to the main landing page?
There is a link but I made it a bit more obvious.
just keep up the great work as usual!
I think the description starts off too technical - “link aggregator” is correct, but not a term that many people know about. “Selfhosted” might even be lost on most people.
Perhaps something more simple would help as a first introduction, there’s plenty of opportunity for the more technical-minded to learn more. Maybe calling it a “network of content-sharing and discussion forums”? I’d love to put “decentralized” at the front, although I’m not sure how obvious that term is.
Some other people also mentioned this, made a post to gather suggestions: https://lemmy.ml/post/41767599
I think this has been proposed before, but i think that the instance with the most users (whatever it may be) should be deprioritized on join-lemmy, for the health of the federation. Its not like people won’t come into contact with the largest instance like right away anyway (and could just kale a new account if they really want to)
It already is. Lemmy.world is not on there.
Oh OK cool, disregard then
Just be careful to not drive all traffic to only large instances, because then people who run smaller ones may not get enough users to keep doing it. How healthy will Lemmy be if everyone uses the same five instances?
Its already a bit of a problem with the large instances being so dominating.
This is what scares me more than anything, and why I want to reject requests to drive ppl to the larger instances.
The more decentralized, the healthier we are.
Ok so I think it would be best to have two ways: One really completely foolproof way, where the user does not need to know a single thing about the technologies involved. 0 upfront homework for the user.
And then a second way for users willing to take the time to do a ‘manual setup’.
I created an AI slop clickable mockup real quick as it’s easier to bring the idea across than describing it with lots of words. This only covers the foolproof way.
https://jsfiddle.net/da9m4nuq/
The main idea being to remove all possible friction for users who are the opposite of tech savvy - which imo are the absolute majority of all users.
The tricky part is preselecting a server for them. This will probably need a more or less manually curated list of servers which most people will be okay with - so no extreme opinions, not technical, big enough so they don’t seem empty on first sight. Done in such a way that the people get more or less equally distributed, so we don’t create one centralized instance.
But I think it is crucial to remove any friction for the users. Don’t let them do homework before they even know what Lemmy is and if it’s worth it at all.
Makes sense, this is similar to the changes I drafted in #524. In another comment we also talked about a list of manually curated default instances and I selected a few.
It is shaping up very nicely! One more nitpick: cloud that button say something like ‘Join Lemmy (instance name)’?
So that any fool understands what it does. Join instance name has the potential to confuse some people, because they don’t know what joining instance name means - especially if some instance is chosen which name is more on the cryptic site.
But anyway, very nice!
Coincidentally thats exactly what I did:
Still needs some more changes though.
Ask the user if they want to give Hitler a medal or a bullet. Medal redirects to .world and bullet to grad.👍 (This is a joke).
I think the colour scheme and dark-mode screenshots contributes to it looking daunting. You even have Matrix (the film)-text in the open source banner photo. The website looks like it’s trying to sell the Lemmy software instead of the Lemmy user experience/community. I think just changing those photos to gentler more iconographic or symbolic ones would go a long way towards making it lighter to process. In fact in-fact, those concepts don’t really need pictures to make them easier to communicate, but the features list probably does. There’s a paste-icon and then it says “Clean, mobile-friendly interface.”. I think just having a mobile screenshot would communicate that way better.
As for helping the user find an instance: If you can find a concise way to communicate what federation is, that’ll probably take some of the anxiety away. I don’t really know how. What do people think about maybe showing like a “80% federated” type stat? Tags would also help, because right now you’re basically going by the logo and name, and only when one catches your eye do you read the description. (You might immediately read the description of the first few presented). I think users probably want to compare by seeing structured information so the differences stand out. Since the description is free form it’s not 1-to-1 like tags would be. The current presentations makes user count seem by far the most important. And then once you’ve made that assumption you’ll probably make another assumption that user count determines how much content you can interact with.
We dont have any designers on the team so these things are always tricky for us. The images are quite arbitrary, so if you have any specific suggestions for better images I would be happy to replace them.
For a normal user it shouldnt be necessary to understand federation before signing up. Tags are tricky because they are dont exist in Lemmy itself, and the ones defined on joinlemmy are practically unmaintained.
I see what you mean about user count, the current layout makes it seem like the most important metric to compare instances, when in reality it doesnt matter so much. Plus the tooltips are wrong, these are only numbers for local users and local comments, federated ones are not counted (and unfortunately are not available from the API at the moment). Is there any other information you would like to see instead of these numbers? The ones I see which are relevant and easily available would be:
- Number of linked/blocked instances
- Downvotes enabled
- Languages
if you have any specific suggestions for better images I would be happy to replace them.
Okay. I will give this some thought.
(tags) dont exist in Lemmy itself, and the ones defined on joinlemmy are practically unmaintained.
It’s unmaintained but at least it exists. I’m sure you’d go through the effort of updating them if an instance owner asked, right? So they’re probably still close enough. You do have data to present and it’s better than nothing.
For a normal user it shouldnt be necessary to understand federation before signing up.
But then what decision are they making? Both what decision are they actually making and what decision do they think they’re making? Knowing that they can interact with all* the instances is hugely transformative to your heuristics.
Number of linked/blocked instances
Number linked is good, but blocked has the problem of confusing narrow scope and being vigilant against spam. An instance might federate with everyone* but because it’s more maintained they also block more.
Is there any other information you would like
Cloudflare is useful to know for our privacy-consonous userbase. It might be kinda technical but if there is one or two stats visible the user cares about or at least understands then I don’t think having one they don’t understand matters. They essentially don’t understand “users” and that’s the main thing presented right now.
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The term Link Aggregator has got to go. Call it a forum and call it a day
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Join Lemmy button is redundant. In fact I don’t think it should even exist. All the buttons have got to go and people should directly see the “what are your interests” selection menu.
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Donation button can be on top, but I don’t think it’s handy to have it at onboarding when people don’t know what Lemmy is
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See all servers button at the top as well
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There needs to be more “general” servers. Lemmy.world was the most popular choice because people want to check out Lemmy and just click on “general”. Not sure if .ml still has the commie paste prompt.
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If possible let their first server be a general one without email verification so they can quickly join
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Most people don’t have a preference for interests, I’d make one giant button on the left saying “all” or " general" or something like that which just directly sends you to a “general” server, and one on the right which allows to select interests.
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Images of Lemmy at the bottom are a bit confusing maybe? undecided on that
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“All topics” and “General” is redundant
Selecting interests for personalized experience is something which should happen on an account basis imo. Reddit lets users select their interests and bases their frontpage algorithm on that. And people can change those filters if they so wish to get a different feed. That’s customization on an account level, not on instance level.
Language customization should be less emphasized, or should be put in the “interests” section based on their country IP while joining. On the internet imperialist English has been considered the default language. The join-Lemmy page is English to begin with.
The term Link Aggregator has got to go. Call it a forum and call it a day
Its not the same, as forums dont use scores and have less focus on external links. The text already mentions forums, by removing link aggregator it would also be too short here.
See all servers button at the top as well
That is what “Join” does, but the text is probably not clear. “See all servers” is a bit long, would “Instances” be clear enough?
There needs to be more “general” servers. Lemmy.world was the most popular choice because people want to check out Lemmy and just click on “general”. Not sure if .ml still has the commie paste prompt.
There are a few like lemmy.zip, lemmy.wtf or reddthat. We could also consider showing lemmy.world again, but with the current sorting it is always shown at the top because it is so much larger than other instances. lemmy.ml still has the commie paste prompt.
If possible let their first server be a general one without email verification so they can quickly join
From what I can see, all the general instances do require email verification.
Images of Lemmy at the bottom are a bit confusing maybe? undecided on that
You mean those grayscale images by the features? Those are just general placeholders to avoid having all text. There arent really any images which are relevant to show for a software project.
Maybe that can be added as a filter. For now I added an icon to instances which require email to signup (#523).
Language customization should be less emphasized, or should be put in the “interests” section based on their country IP while joining. On the internet imperialist English has been considered the default language. The join-Lemmy page is English to begin with.
It uses the language configured in your browser. For me it shows in Spanish. We can also use browser language to filter the instance list without manual selection.
Join Lemmy button is redundant. In fact I don’t think it should even exist. All the buttons have got to go and people should directly see the “what are your interests” selection menu. Donation button can be on top, but I don’t think it’s handy to have it at onboarding when people don’t know what Lemmy is
Frontpage buttons and topic selection are definitely the trickiest part. I would consider removing the topic selection, because there are some which barely narrow it down (technology, general or politics each show a few dozen instances), or shows only a few instances which dont match well. Plus the topics are not actively maintained.
I made a PR with some changes to the frontpage: https://github.com/LemmyNet/joinlemmy-site/pull/524
The term Link Aggregator has got to go. Call it a forum and call it a day
Its not the same, as forums dont use scores and have less focus on external links. The text already mentions forums, by removing link aggregator it would also be too short here.
I don’t think link aggregator is a good term at all. If I said that to my mom she would never imagine anything like Reddit, she’d probably think of Google instead. Forum would be much better. “Discussion forum” would fix the issue with it being too short.
Or even “forum with voting and comment trees” lol IDK, I feel like anything is better than “link aggregator”.
Makes sense, I created a separate post about this: https://lemmy.ml/post/41767599
We could also consider showing lemmy.world again
Possibly. Dumping everyone at lemmy.zip is a possibility too. lemmy.wtf is is a bit too on the nose.
I would avoid using instances without “lemmy” in the name like reddthat, it was very confusing to me when I started out.
I would consider removing the topic selection, because there are some which barely narrow it down (technology, general or politics each show a few dozen instances)
I think I agree with that, at least for now. The only topic instance with real specific activity in that list is probably blahaj for the LGBTQ.
The new front page looks much better and cleaner. Not sure about the “Apps” though, people need to create an account first so. Maybe “Instance selector”? Also I’d call it “Mobile Apps” instead, “Apps” is a bit vague.
I still plead for removing both buttons and directly showing the “instance selector” in the middle area, with the “See all instances” showing in the top bar only. Maybe slightly more prominently than the other top bar icons
link aggregator rant
The definition used by Reddit currently is also possible
that would make Lemmy a “forum and (social) news aggregation” platform. “Link-aggregation” sounds much to vague to me, as if Lemmy is a link-scraping bot. But I’ve gone on that rant in the past.
One of the buttons talks about “instances” and the other one about “servers in your new design”. Not sure what the difference there is
Possibly. Dumping everyone at lemmy.zip is a possibility too. lemmy.wtf is is a bit too on the nose.
I would avoid using instances without “lemmy” in the name like reddthat, it was very confusing to me when I started out.
That makes sense. I went through the list and found these as reasonable defaults: https://lemmy.zip/, https://lemmy.today/, https://thelemmy.club/, https://lemmus.org/
Then it would be one of the monthly tasks for @dessalines@lemmy.ml and me to go through this list and keep it updated.
The new front page looks much better and cleaner. Not sure about the “Apps” though, people need to create an account first so.
At least some of the apps let you register directly, though I dont have an overview of that. Would be good to contact the app devs about adding a registration option where it is missing. They might have the same doubts which instances to use as defaults.
Also I’d call it “Mobile Apps” instead, “Apps” is a bit vague.
It also includes web apps and desktop apps…
I still plead for removing both buttons and directly showing the “instance selector” in the middle area, with the “See all instances” showing in the top bar only. Maybe slightly more prominently than the other top bar icons
Which instance selector do you mean?
The definition used by Reddit currently is also possible
“News aggregator” and “Link aggregator” is very similar, either one works for me.
One of the buttons talks about “instances” and the other one about “servers in your new design”. Not sure what the difference there is
No difference, its just that “Instances” may not be clear to new users. Should definitely be made consistent before merging.
On the internet imperialist English has been considered the default language. The join-Lemmy page is English to begin with.
I disagree with this. Anything to encourage other language use is good. And for me it builds confidence to see the selection. Both because I think the community is large enough to exist in other languages and because it signals the developer’s priorities. If there were good options in my preferred languages I would absolutely have joined a non-English instance instead. That’s not going to exist if the UI buries the option.
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In the instance list, the link to https://lemmyverse.net/communities seems broken right now, it only works if you remove the
/communitiespath and then navigate to communities from the UI itself (it seems to be their own bug, it also happens if you go to the communities tab and refresh the page). Maybe the link could change to point to https://lemmyverse.net/ instead.Created an issue for it: 516
Thanks, opened a PR and also reported it in the lemmverse repo:
