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I think someone needs to look into the onboarding process. My experience so far: 1: Clicked on "Try Now". 2: Was greeted with a blob of text. Spotted "The eas

I think someone needs to look into the onboarding process. My experience so far: 1: Clicked on "Try Now". 2: Was greeted with a blob of text. Spotted "The easiest way to try Matrix is to use the Riot Web ...". 3: Clicked on "Riot Web" because that is a link. 4: Got transferred to a different website with a lot of buttons on it. 5: Clicked on the green "Get started button" 6: Got transferred to another page with a bunch of buttons on it 7: Clicked on "Browser" 8: A new window with a "Sign in" and a "Create Account" button opened 9: Clicked on "Create account" 10: Entered a username and password 11: Got asked to do the Google Captcha 12: Had to select 4 tiles with traffic lights and cklick next 13: Was told to select stairs. 14: Since there were no stairs, I clicked "Skip" 15: Had to select 7 tiles with fire hidrants and click next 16: Had to select 4 tiles with traffic lights and click next 17: Had to select 3 tiles with traffic lights and click next 18: Had to accept terms an conditions and click "accept" 19: Had to enter a recovery passphrase. 20: Had to confirm my recovery passphrase. 21: Was forced to click a "copy" button to copy the recovery passphrase. 22: Had to click "continue" 23: Staring at a spinner for a while. 24: Was prompted with an "OK" button. Clicked it. 25: Was prompted with a "Welcome to Riot" page with different options. 26: Clicked "Explore public rooms". 27: Clicked on the first one. 28: Had to look at a spinner for a while with "Joining room" next to it. 29: Still looking at the spinner ... 30: Spinner is still spinning ... will take the time to post this to HN. Update: 31: Back to the Matrix window. Hurray! I'm in a channel. Typing "Hello" and enter. It seems to work. I wonder if it would be an option to shortcut these 31 steps into just one and throw everyone who clicks "Try Now" into a "Welcome to Matrix" channel.

Arathorn 6y ago
So, that's the current Matrix network, not the new P2P Matrix stuff. That said, I think the main takehomes are: * We need to make it easier to jump into Riot/Web from the matrix.org home page. * Google reCAPTCHA sucks; we know. * The new recovery passphrase thing is an error - we know, we're in the middle of fixing it, targeting next week. * Joining rooms is slow - we know, this is harder to fix, but is on the menu. Thanks for spelling it out ;)
- no_gravity 6y ago
  Ok, great. Here comes more feedback :) Since I did not save my password when signing up, I proceeded to set an email. Got a confirmation email and clicked the link in it. Then signed out and clicked the "Set a new password" link. But it does not work. I always get the message "Failed to send email: This email address was not found".
  - Arathorn 6y ago
    I've filed that for you at https://github.com/vector-im/riot-web/issues/13897 https://github.com/vector-im/riot-web/issues/13897. Please keep the feedback coming there; we are currently chasing down first time user experience snafus like this on the current app.
tbran 6y ago
I also recently signed up, and totally agree that it was a little bit of a PITA. I will say, however, that a lot of the difficulty appears to be tied to the privacy aspects. I think it's the only service I checked out that didn't require an email or phone number to sign up. I think the privacy/ease of signup trade-off is okay right now, and I also think that Riot is trying to make it better. Also, I'm successfully using it with non-tech-oriented family and it's been quite good!
thrwaway69 6y ago
Add that to the pain of riot x and riot normal app on Android. Verification doesn't work at all. I tried encrypted channel with bunch of friends before and I think it's a pretty bad experience. The app forgets that you verified from time to time.
MayeulC 6y ago
I'm not sure whether you are talking about the regular Matrix network on purpose, or not. Regarding the p2p app (https://p2p.riot.im https://p2p.riot.im), yeah, that's a proof-of-concept they bolted onto an existing client. They could have adjusted the login page. I need to click "Create an account" for it to work, give or take one page refresh. Then I can open the room directory and pick a room. However, I tend to like some of that hand-holding. Plus, when someone joins a chat system, they're generally introduced to it by acquaintances that already use it, so the next onboardings are easier. Not saying it shouldn't be improved, of course.

Arathorn 6y ago

So, that's the current Matrix network, not the new P2P Matrix stuff. That said, I think the main takehomes are: * We need to make it easier to jump into Riot/Web from the matrix.org home page. * Google reCAPTCHA sucks; we know. * The new recovery passphrase thing is an error - we know, we're in the middle of fixing it, targeting next week. * Joining rooms is slow - we know, this is harder to fix, but is on the menu. Thanks for spelling it out ;)

no_gravity 6y ago
Ok, great. Here comes more feedback :) Since I did not save my password when signing up, I proceeded to set an email. Got a confirmation email and clicked the link in it. Then signed out and clicked the "Set a new password" link. But it does not work. I always get the message "Failed to send email: This email address was not found".
- Arathorn 6y ago
  I've filed that for you at https://github.com/vector-im/riot-web/issues/13897 https://github.com/vector-im/riot-web/issues/13897. Please keep the feedback coming there; we are currently chasing down first time user experience snafus like this on the current app.

tbran 6y ago

I also recently signed up, and totally agree that it was a little bit of a PITA. I will say, however, that a lot of the difficulty appears to be tied to the privacy aspects. I think it's the only service I checked out that didn't require an email or phone number to sign up. I think the privacy/ease of signup trade-off is okay right now, and I also think that Riot is trying to make it better. Also, I'm successfully using it with non-tech-oriented family and it's been quite good!

thrwaway69 6y ago

Add that to the pain of riot x and riot normal app on Android. Verification doesn't work at all. I tried encrypted channel with bunch of friends before and I think it's a pretty bad experience. The app forgets that you verified from time to time.

MayeulC 6y ago

I'm not sure whether you are talking about the regular Matrix network on purpose, or not. Regarding the p2p app (https://p2p.riot.im https://p2p.riot.im), yeah, that's a proof-of-concept they bolted onto an existing client. They could have adjusted the login page. I need to click "Create an account" for it to work, give or take one page refresh. Then I can open the room directory and pick a room. However, I tend to like some of that hand-holding. Plus, when someone joins a chat system, they're generally introduced to it by acquaintances that already use it, so the next onboardings are easier. Not saying it shouldn't be improved, of course.