"The problem with Mastodon is its UI, it makes so many weird UX decisions--"

Okay, but.... you know that you can change it, right? There's a lot of different options besides just the default UI. For instance: Elk? Phanpy?

"It just sucks we're stuck using this interface that is so poorly designed--"

Like you can just go to phanpy.social and try it, it's pretty easy--

"Alas, Mastodon's dev priorities don't consider usability a primary concern, and this is why--"

You listening to me over here?

"And you still click a link to a post and it opens it in a NEW WINDOW OMG--"

....Which, isn't a problem in Phanpy. Clicking a link to a post opens it in the same window.

"And I wish I could just see a preview of the embedded post so I didn't have to click through to the post in the first place--"

Fixed in Phanpy, not an issue.

"And my server doesn't support language translation--"

Built into Phanpy.

"And if only there was a GIF picker--"

Built into Phanpy.

"It would be nice if we had emoji reactions, too--"

Maybe you just hate Mastodon. Might I recommend Sharkey--

"It just sucks, no one is going to come here when the only software that exists refuses to take onboard any feedback or make any changes to its interface--"

Okay, I'll just leave you here, then.

"And it doesn't matter that other options exist!"

Oh, wait? This sounds interesting.

"Because Mastodon is the default, it sets the tone, so unless it does the thing it might as well not even exist."

Oh poop, I thought you had an interesting and original criticism for a minute. I'll be going now.

I feel like people just like to complain. Abandon the default Mastodon UI if you hate it so much, or at least explain why no other available UI can meet your needs. Like the fact we even can have alternate UIs, and that it's not the responsibility of the Mastodon dev team to create them, is one of the cool features of this place.

"Okay, sure, but using another UI is a highly-technical thing and not everyone is--"

Yeah, yeah.

@oli I don't think the problem is that it's too technical. I think it's more that when people hear about Mastodon, they either do an app store search for Mastodon and get the offical apps, or do a web search for Mastodon and get either mastodon.social or joinmastodon.org. So since they use the offical apps/UI on every other social network they've ever used, how do they know that this is an exception and the official interfaces are mediocre and they should use another one?

And people use a web interface so sign up to a social network site expect to visit that same site after they've signed up -- which is the way it works on every social network they've ever used.

It's true that with 1-1 onboarding it's possible to get people through this. With GtS I point people to phanpy, let them know that it works with GtS even though the big letters say it's a Mastodon client and the button that says "log in to Mastodon" and there's a separate instance settings page that's linked to (in very small font) from the phanpy settings page. I also let them know that some apps work well with GtS, others don't, so check it out and don't be surprised. But even so it really is confusing.

@thenexusofprivacy The genesis of this subtoot was actually more about a person who is technical-minded, who has been here for many years.

I do wish the default interface was better, especially for 'cross-server' links or previews.

I dunno....it's more like that there are existing proofs-of-concept out there that could be integrated into the Mastodon UI to handle these things. Like the existence of these other UIs (and the many, many, many mobile clients) demonstrates that. There are solved problems in these areas, so while this doesn't help with onboarding, eventually you can just leave Mastodon to handle backend tasks while folks who want a better UI can choose an alternative.