5 ms·

I almost never log on to my Mastodon account. When I do, I always say I should do so more as the vast majority of the people I really enjoyed following on Twitt

by jghn 4y ago

I almost never log on to my Mastodon account. When I do, I always say I should do so more as the vast majority of the people I really enjoyed following on Twitter are on there. But the thing is, I just hate the Mastodon UI. It's so clunky. And the lack of things like centralized search are a big issue for me. I dislike the federated nature of it. In short, it's just not to me. Which sucks, as that's where a lot of the content I want to see currently lives. But such is life. Meanwhile, even though my Twitter feed is a shell of what it once was, I wind up there several times a day. And it's not "because of the algorithm", I have been using the algorithm-free feed for years now.

seba_dos1 4y ago
> But the thing is, I just hate the Mastodon UI. Which one?
- jeroenhd 4y ago
  The Mastodon project only comes with one UI. There are forks and alternatives, and themed instances of course, but those aren't really "the mastodon UI".
  - seba_dos1 4y ago
    You're wrong. Even the Web client of Mastodon comes with two separate UIs, and that's not the only client officially provided by the Mastodon project.
  - ocdtrekkie 4y ago
    Mastodon itself basically has two UIs, a Twitter like simple UI and a Tweetdeck like advanced UI. And once you get into like mobile client apps, your options absolutely explode.
  - jeromegv 4y ago
    It's also an API, there are tons of 3rd party apps available.
gargron 4y ago
> But the thing is, I just hate the Mastodon UI. It's so clunky. I hope this situation improves once we finish hiring a product designer. Personally I don't think the web client is as bad as some people make it sound, but I know it can be improved. In the interim you can try the 3rd party web client Elk [1], some people seem to really like it. [1]: https://elk.zone https://elk.zone
- theshrike79 4y ago
  Mastodon has the same UI problem as Matrix (Element specifically). The UI/UX isn't _bad_, it's just a teeni tiny bit more worse and confusing in everything than the competition. If someone would just make a 1:1 clone of Discord and slap it on Matrix, it'd be perfect. The underlying technology is fine, the interfaces are the clunky ones. Mastodon has a bit of the same, just following someone from another instance is like 6 steps. Basically you need to copy their URL, go to your own instance, search for them using the same URL and click follow if it's the only search result. Compared to Twitter's one click that's a good 500% increase in complexity.
peterashford 4y ago
Use an app?
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
thejohnconway 4y ago
If you’re after something a bit more like Twitter, try Elk which is an alternative web UI (it works with your existing account): https://elk.zone https://elk.zone

by jghn 4y ago

seba_dos1 4y ago

> But the thing is, I just hate the Mastodon UI. Which one?

jeroenhd 4y ago
The Mastodon project only comes with one UI. There are forks and alternatives, and themed instances of course, but those aren't really "the mastodon UI".
- seba_dos1 4y ago
  You're wrong. Even the Web client of Mastodon comes with two separate UIs, and that's not the only client officially provided by the Mastodon project.
- ocdtrekkie 4y ago
  Mastodon itself basically has two UIs, a Twitter like simple UI and a Tweetdeck like advanced UI. And once you get into like mobile client apps, your options absolutely explode.
- jeromegv 4y ago
  It's also an API, there are tons of 3rd party apps available.

gargron 4y ago

> But the thing is, I just hate the Mastodon UI. It's so clunky. I hope this situation improves once we finish hiring a product designer. Personally I don't think the web client is as bad as some people make it sound, but I know it can be improved. In the interim you can try the 3rd party web client Elk [1], some people seem to really like it. [1]: https://elk.zone https://elk.zone

theshrike79 4y ago
Mastodon has the same UI problem as Matrix (Element specifically). The UI/UX isn't _bad_, it's just a teeni tiny bit more worse and confusing in everything than the competition. If someone would just make a 1:1 clone of Discord and slap it on Matrix, it'd be perfect. The underlying technology is fine, the interfaces are the clunky ones. Mastodon has a bit of the same, just following someone from another instance is like 6 steps. Basically you need to copy their URL, go to your own instance, search for them using the same URL and click follow if it's the only search result. Compared to Twitter's one click that's a good 500% increase in complexity.

peterashford 4y ago

Use an app?

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

thejohnconway 4y ago

If you’re after something a bit more like Twitter, try Elk which is an alternative web UI (it works with your existing account): https://elk.zone https://elk.zone