this post was submitted on 10 Jun 2023
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Jerboa

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Jerboa is a native-android client for Lemmy, built using the native android framework, Jetpack Compose.

Warning: You can submit issues, but between Lemmy and lemmy-ui, I probably won't have too much time to work on them. Learn jetpack compose like I did if you want to help make this app better.

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New user login/onboarding could be a bit more intuitive (lemmy.ml)
submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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Essentially it took me around 1.5 minutes to figure out how to login on the app. You tap buttons and it says login required. Why not just open up the login interface? Or provide an easy link or ask immediately after first run.

Or on the sidebar, have an obvious banner that says "Login".

Just too many taps to get logged in to add your first account, and too difficult to figure out where to do so. And no help when the app prompts you to login. Make it super easy to do that!

Edit: I have developed modern UX/UI, so if even I found it confusing, I know non-expert or unfamiliar users are going to fail to ever use this app, which would be a shame. It's really great!

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[–] PriorProject 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

I don't mean to be dismissive, there are some good ideas in this post... but if spending 1.5 minutes looking for the login button is a major issue for you, you're about to have a bad time. I know people on Reddit are pitching Lemmy as the solution for people who are irritated about losing access to the hyper-polished third-party reddit app for their choice... but... realistically... the experience is not comparable. There are A LOT of rough edges, and it's not just the edges that need work... there's deep down federation jank and performance jank and "inner loop" UI jank you have yet to discover. And of those things... devs are likely to be fairly ruthlessly prioritizing performance fixes for a while to keep the lights on while the Lemmy userbase doubles in size every 3 days. If people bounce off usability jank, it's probably for the best at the moment just to throttle the rate of adoption, and also to protect them from the worse jank that awaits on the other side a successful login.

Don't get me wrong, Lemmy is very promising and I'm enjoying spending a lot of time here. But enjoying it really requires a mindset of "I'm going to work past the flaws in order to try to do what I can to improve things", whether that's answering questions, making quality posts, modding communities, running instances, or fixing the codebase. If you're REALLY passionate about improving the login UX, you probably need to be ready to invest enough time to either:

  • Mock up an improved login flow UI that's viable to implement in Jetpack and file a GitHub issue with those mockups.
  • Or actually fix the code and submit a PR.

That's not to say that posting here is wrong or useless, but UX tweak suggestions that save a one time 1.5m cost on signin are not likely to be top of the existing devs mind right now, there's just an ocean of worse stuff that happens more frequently to pay attention to first. If you want this to jump the queue, you'll probably need to be prepared to do some non-trivial work to get the ball rolling.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

I don’t mean to be dismissive, there are some good ideas in this post… but if spending 1.5 minutes looking for the login button is a major issue for you, you’re about to have a bad time.

If I, of all people, am spending 1.5 minutes... then A LOT of people are going to be having a bad time. I have previously developed UIs. Onboarding is one of the most critical stages of engagement and adoption of applications.

The rest of your comments, to be frank, don't make sense. Might even be dangerous, which really makes me question what you're advocating for. Are you genuinely arguing for a poor onboarding experience just because people need to put in more work to understand something? Genuinely STOP, haha. It's terrible to suggest such a thing.

Put yourself in the shoes of a non-expert user. You are definitely NOT representing the 90% average users, and that type of attitude will hurt the fediverse and open communication tools.

We want more people to join this community. We don't want to guardrail it or make it difficult, which is the type of thing you are advocating for... for reasons that don't make sense. Let's get away from elitism and invite more people into this wonderful community, not whatever you just suggested!

[–] PriorProject 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Are you genuinely arguing for a poor onboarding experience just because people need to put in more work to understand something?

No? I'm not sure how you got that idea from my comment. Recapping:

  1. People are signing up very fast in spite of the poor onboarding. Maybe so fast that they'll break servers. In these conditions it's rational to focus on performance and capacity. It's even rational to throttle onboarding, through disabling signups or deprioritizing onboarding polish.
  2. The rough onboarding experience is a true reflection the rough experience post-onboarding. In these conditions, its rational to optimize the post-onboarding experience FIRST to increase post-signup retention. A slick onboarding followed by a rough ride is a good way to maximize the number of people who write off your app/ecosystem and then provide poor word of mouth about it. Again, leading to potentially rational decisions to prioritize other work above onboarding polish.

That said, you seem passionate about onboarding and have the background to do something about it. I'm sure you could help a lot getting involved in the github project. No one (including me) WANTS a poor onboarding experience. The question is who is going to prioritize it now over the other serious issues that are currently being caused by the rapid influx of successful signups in spite of the onboarding jank.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

Are you sure you're in the right thread? We're talking about the mobile app, not the Lemmy application.

First point: People have already signed up for Lemmy through the website. The mobile app is just logging in to access Lemmy. Everything you're talking about doesn't really make sense here.

Second point: It's honestly a bit difficult to follow. I think it sounds good in your mind, but it's not really making sense to me with how you phrase it.

The question is who is going to prioritize it now over the other serious issues that are currently being caused by the rapid influx of successful signups in spite of the onboarding jank.

I just don't understand what this has to do with the mobile app. But, yeah, having seen a number of people say that they had issues logging in, I think we can put your argument to rest. The onboarding needs improving! :D