Do people actually like all of the overdesigned clutter to the point where it makes them not want to switch sites?
To me, the stripped down clarity on Lemmy is a feature. I remember back in the day when people flocked to Facebook from MySpace, in large part because they were sick of eye gouging customized pages and just wanted a simple, consistent interface. The content, not the buttons to click on it are the draw right?
“The hosts are too lazy” says the person whining about it without doing anything.
Try switching to a platform you’ve never used before and making a community out of nothing, or host the Lemmy instance and be forced to deal with thousands of new users daily. Lazy my ass…
If you don’t like the UI, you can always download a browser extension that change the CSS of the website. However, if this is the main criticism people do to Lemmy, I would say that’s not bad for a relatively new platform
I definitely choose my social media based on round edges and opaque tiles. Don’t you? It definitely isn’t for the content or discussion.
The reason I used Reddit is Fun WAS because of its stripped down, bare bones style. I only wanted to read thoughts and opinions, and choose to view images/video/ads when I wanted to. This is absolutely a feature of Jerboa (and Lemmy) for me
I don’t know the background of OP so this is just an opinion: I feel that modern UX have become so ubiquitous and streamlined for content consumption that users who aren’t used to old-styled UIs see the lack of “sleek” design as lesser. It works doubly so that users aren’t willing to venture outside of their ecosystems and will put up with anything regardless if it’s detrimental to their experience.
Compare users of new reddit and the official app vs. users of old reddit and 3PA. I used 3PA because there wasn’t an official app and RiF matched what I was used to. It’s a similar phenomena to Apple users vs Windows/Android. People are just used to a streamlined sleek experience (which to be fair has it’s merits) but to say it’s superior or that the alternative is lesser is a large misstep in thinking.
It takes effort to go out of your comfort zone but it’s saddening to see users mindlessly, for lack of a better terms, consume
Dark grays, blues? Squared? Good. I love simplicity! Not to mention, Reddit started out like that too, and among the older wave of users old.reddit was still a favorite for that reason.
No kidding. The color scheme is easy on the eyes, and I can digest information easily here much like old reddit. What are they on?
I think the more they bitch about Reddit alternatives, the more people will be reminded that there are alternatives to Reddit.
“Do people actually like all of the overdesigned clutter?” Hell nah! Polar opposite here.
I absolutely hate it when sites randomly redesign to look “modern” and “hip” or whatever you want to call it. Forcefully adding flashy, colorful stuff that you can’t turn off again or opt out of is a surefire way for me to dislike the site in question immediatly. Emojis, animated smileys, glitter effects, neon-colored letters, autoplay-animations, and worst of all: sound effects! Nope. Nu-uh. Get that sh*t away from me. I like my black-squared, simple layout and silent browsing experience, thank you very much.
This is an actual use case for ‘the customer is always right’. No matter how much you prefer the layout, there will be others that prefer something else. And if we want to attract more users, that’s something that we’ll need to consider.
By far the most off-putting thing about lemmy is how people think themselves too good to consider the preferences and experiences of the average user coming from reddit.
Personally, I love the clutter-free design of lemmy.world it’s a good mix of looking pretty without being too empty.
That being said, this is a refreshing take after reading through some of the top comments. I wish more people were a little more level-headed like this.
Maybe there could be other instances with different themes that appeal more to the casual reddit user? I’m still not sure how the themes work when it comes to Lemmy and its instances.
“The customer is always right, except in matters of taste” is the full quote I believe.
I love the homogenized look. If any chances are made I would hope they’d be optional so people who want the current look can keep it.
The customer is always right,
exceptin matters of tasteYou got the quote exactly backwards
Coming from apollo i could agree it could look alot better but its still miles above the native reddit app.
I don’t quite understand how we cant use kbin style on the rest of lemmy. Or hexbears super nice looking theme which is a fork of lemmy.
Strange, I think Lemmy highly resembles Reddit. Maybe this user is talking about an app? Ironically, the apps are what this is about.
Honestly dig it, reminds me of the early days of reddit when it was more of a community than an advertising platform. People are just looking for any little thing at this point.
In the middle of 2010, "Due to a controversial redesign brought on by Digg, disgruntled users declared a “Quit Digg” day where they posted links to Reddit and left Digg behind to join Reddit. Reddit subsequently overtook Digg in search popularity. "
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_Reddit
Here’s what Reddit looked like on August 7, 2010
https://web.archive.org/web/20100807085503/http://www.reddit.com/
This is what Digg looked like on August 7, 2010
https://web.archive.org/web/20100807080410/http://digg.com/
Reddit’s had 18 years to tweak the user interface. Lemmy’s Initial release was May 5, 2019; 4 years ago. Honestly, I have no issue with Lemmy’s interface, but I feel confident in saying that given another 14 years of development, Lemmy will probably not look like it does today.
Reddit still looks pretty much the same as that to me whenever I connect to it. RES probably helps though.
You can also make it look any way you want b/c it’s open source
Reddit used to be open source as well
By that logic nobody should ever switch to lemmy because it’ll always be a decade behind the times.
Unless Tomorrow’s Reddit becomes Today’s Digg. Once hot, now not.
I’m criticizing the logic, not the site
I’m not really sure, I think some of them might which is weird. Though I think a lot of them are just trying to find reasons to complain about Lemmy because they are addicted to reddit, don’t want to make the switch and they know that if people start leaving Reddit they’re going to have to switch to something else and that scares the shit out of them. So they’re going to complain about Lemmy or the alternatives because they desperately don’t want to lose Reddit, their source of dopamine and fulfillment.
Though I think a lot of them are just trying to find reasons to complain about Lemmy because they are addicted to reddit, don’t want to make the switch and they know that if people start leaving Reddit they’re going to have to switch to something else and that scares the shit out of them.
It sometimes amazes me how opposed to change people can sometimes be. Yeah sure Lemmy is different, but not radically so.
Lemmy UI has a ton of issues
TBF Lemmy UI/UX is horrible. So is Reddit’s IMO, for completely different reasons, but still. It’s a valid criticism, it’s just also not an endorsement of Reddit.
Yeah, Lemmy is still a bit rough around the edges in a lot of ways. I hope the surge in users brings some frontend devs over.
The new apps should help a lot, but it’s still a bit of a pain to use on PC. I also have issues with the feed just going wild and poping in new posts so fast I can’t read anything on the web.
Lemmy needs work, but I’m not here for the design. I’m here to wrestle control away from corporations. Anyone that doesn’t understand that is a bot.
