@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”
@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.
@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…
@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.
@inthehands I followed the onboarding path of a person who doesn't use computers much: typed in "mastodon" in google, clicked 1st link, clicked sign up, entered info, checked my mail, activated my account, then in the web interface there was a big blue button "write" or something, I saw it immediately, clicked it and tooted. What are the anecdotal onboarding issues you mention? I'd be happy to help with them because this is the lowest hanging fruit in my book.
@jonn @inthehands here's an immediate one - did you join mastodon.social? for me it actually comes above joinmastodon in my Google results (and after some band). it's defederated a lot of places. why can't you find your friends, person who doesn't use computers much?
@tuzgai @inthehands joining mastodon.social and moving an account to another server is the best onboarding strategy. If you defed mastodon.social instead of having moderation, it's YOU who are locking in your users, not normal people who just want to join mastodon (no pun intended).
@jonn @inthehands it's only somewhat on either one, it's a systemic issue.
but let's say you join a server that's not defederated. now you have to know exactly who you're looking for and search for their handle+server. is this a good experience? I'm a tech person who deals with tedious computer stuff every day and still found it to be pretty obnoxious searching for everyone