this post was submitted on 15 Jul 2023
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I love signal, but they have to step up their game. Telegram is a hundred times more fun to use and I hate that my mom and close circle uses it and I hate to say that I don’t wanna use Signal coz it’s a pain to us in comparison with other messengers like Telegram.
Please Signal, instead of doing features like “pay through signal” do something that is actually useful now instead or fun. Who wanted to pay through signal in the first place. Maybe a small audience but is that small audience your target group!?
I love signal for keeping up to their own standards of keeping privacy (until somebody else steps up as a CEO Ehe. Fuck spez). But their overall User Experience sucks compared to other apps.
i've only ever found signal to be simple and straightforward to use, with a nice clean interface.
what are you suggesting other than some nonspecific desire for it to be more "fun"?
I would gladly answer your question, and I know Im going to get downvoted because I won't exactly answer it.
I just want to apologize that Im not willing to invest time into re-iterating my thinking into "why I think signal is not 'fun' to use".
It would require much effort from my time to do that and in detail and we would go back and forth, so I'm just here to apologize for not responding to your question because it's a great question. I always like to give detailed answers but just not willing to invest my time into this discussion for which Im sorry. I hope you get an answer from somebody else if someone else shares the same opinion.
For context, and why I'm judging Signal harshly, I'm a software engineer at Powerfactors, and used to be a Frontend developer, now I'm professionally a Backend engineer. And I've started as a Fullstack and Freelancer. So I kind of understand both sides and trying to understand the user as well.
I make my own Project which I re-iterated many times throughout the years to make user friendly and "fun" or easy to use or actually useful for clients to use. So when I use a piece of software I think in detail what could be done better and what could have gone bad from both frontend, backend, and UX/UI and I like the OSX/Apple philosophy on this one. That's as much as you're gonna get from me, Im going to re-install Signal again and right a piece of lists coz I know this is gonna take much of my time coz it's who I am, I like writing detailed essays.
I would gladly answer your question, and I know Im going to get downvoted because I won't exactly answer it. So understandable if you downvote me for not providing an answer, all I want is to apologize coz I like actually providing productive answers.
I just want to apologize that Im not willing to invest time into re-iterating my thinking into "why I think signal is not 'fun' to use". I dont wanna invest my time into re-installing Signal, writing a list and an essay about it etc and then going back and forth with you.
It would require much effort from my time to do that and in detail and we would go back and forth, so I'm just here to apologize for not responding to your question because it's a great question. I always like to give detailed answers but just not willing to invest my time into this discussion for which Im sorry. I hope you get an answer from somebody else if someone else shares the same opinion.
For context, and why I'm judging Signal harshly, I'm a software engineer at Powerfactors, and used to be a Frontend developer, now I'm professionally a Backend engineer. And I've started as a Fullstack and Freelancer. So I kind of understand both sides and trying to understand the user as well. Like I try to understand users like my Grandmother, my mother, to a programmer or a graphic designer. I try to understand who the software is for, and how to make it appealing to them and useful.
I make my own Project which I re-iterated many times throughout the years to make user friendly and "fun" or easy to use or actually useful for clients to use. So when I use a piece of software I think in detail what could be done better and what could have gone bad from both frontend, backend, and UX/UI and I like the OSX/Apple philosophy on this one. That's as much as you're gonna get from me, Im NOT going to re-install Signal again and write a piece of list and essay coz I know this is gonna take much of my time, it's who I am, I like writing detailed essays and answers + (i accidentally deleted my last answer instead of clicking edit i clicked delete).
edit: Again, I wanna emphasize, your question is awesome, if somebody here is UX/UI specialist, or knows about user-experience in general for some reason, and has the time to invest, you have my blessing. I'm making the comparison between Telegram, WhatsApp etc. vs Signal for context and why my opinion is that Signal falls besides them. + As you can see I'm not "arguing in bad faith". Im here to discuss.:)
what on earth
Oh it's a party on lemmy now!! A new Copy/Pasta born...
In reality though no clue what I just read but they sure seemed sincere
Gladly to be used as a copy pasta if it’s worth it lmao
Among the e2ee apps out there like Matrix, Sessions, Jami, simplex, etc. Signal is by far the most normal chat app out there. Pretty much straightforward (with the exception of Stories which nobody uses) to use. The only thing I am looking forward to is making it so the phone number isn't viewable to other chat members.
I like that you can just completely disable Stories
At least they removed the SMS function.
Unfortunately, removal of the SMS function was what caused the few friends that had Signal to stop using it, myself included. It was great to see someone show up as a Signal contact instead of regular SMS, but also being able to reach anyone I needed without having to figure out whether they have Signal, so I can use that, or that they don't and I have to send an SMS. Now I simply don't bother with Signal and just use regular SMS all the time, and I don't think I've opened Signal ever since they removed SMS support.
Which is a shame, I really liked Signal.
Dropping SMS alas was necessary (and not just for Signal, but for messengers-with-SMS as well) because of the general play Google is doing with SMS → RCS. IMO, Signal held the idiot ball quite strongly by not just picking TextSecure from their old archives, tuning it up and releasing it as an updated, separate "Signal SMS" app.
I feel like they could've just put text messages in one tab and Signal messages in another tab. Like, iirc, their whole deal was that they were opposed to potentially misleading people about text messages being secure just because they were being sent through Signal.
I seem to remember something like that was discussed at some point in Signal Community and one of the big arguments contra was that the normies and even some advanced people who use Signal just don't "get" UX warnings any more: you could have put all the red tabs, cross signs and unlocked padlocks on the screen you wanted, they were still gonna complain openly on the internet and discredit Signal for not actually "securing muh messages". It's actually part of the same argument why they don't let you export your own messages.
Besides, having to use the same engine (tab and all) in the same app for two things with vastly different reaches of security was murder on the dev team. There were things they were not able to keep testing because of clashing against SMS compat. It is one of the reasons why I think the smart thing to have done would have to keep the "original" app as the Signal SMS.