Post · bonfire.cafe

Post

I won't be able to use the flag EXPERIMENTAL_FEATURES=profile_redesign for a while. I do not have time to redesign ours. I really think the Mastodon core team has made some poor choices lately, UX anti-patterns are popping up again. Last time, they changed post visibility under a modal that required up to six clicks and added unnecessary cognitive strain. I even sent a PR suggestion, but they rejected it.

Right now we have "Posts" and "Posts and replies" in tabs, but in the experimental profile redesign there's a "Posts" toggle that contains "Replies" and "Posts" toggles underneath it. It adds extra clicks and combines interface elements under one toggle, which just creates more friction. What's wrong with traditional tabs?

I wish they'd stop breaking what already works well. Honestly, as a long-time front-end developer, I don't understand some of these design choices. Hopefully, these experimental features will mature a bit before they make it to stable.

Issues opened:
https://github.com/ronilaukkarinen/mastodon-bird-ui/issues/183
https://github.com/ronilaukkarinen/mastodon-bird-ui/issues/182

Will hold off for now.

#MastoAdmin #Mastodon #MastodonBirdUI #BirdUI

Riku Voipio

@suihkulokki@society.oftrolls.com · 5 days ago

@rolle It really seems like the UX is going the wrong direction, added friction in several places.I think I can observe clear trend of less boosts ever since they made boosting a two-click action. @MastodonEngineering

Roni Rolle Laukkarinen

@rolle@mementomori.social · 5 days ago

@suihkulokki I enabled quick boost as soon as the dialog became the default. I agree, there are too many dialogs and toggles everywhere, and it seems more are on the way. @MastodonEngineering

Boosting preferences
Control boosting visibility

When enabled, boosting will first open a confirmation dialog in which you can change the visibility of your boost.
Enable quick boosting

When enabled, clicking on the Boost icon will immediately boost instead of opening the boost/quote dropdown menu. Relocates the quoting action to the (Options) menu.
Tip: Regardless of settings, Shift + Click on the Boost icon will immediately boost. — Boosting preferences Control boosting visibility When enabled, boosting will first open a confirmation dialog in which you can change the visibility of your boost. Enable quick boosting When enabled, clicking on the Boost icon will immediately boost instead of opening the boost/quote dropdown menu. Relocates the quoting action to the (Options) menu. Tip: Regardless of settings, Shift + Click on the Boost icon will immediately boost.

Kalle Kniivilä

@kallekn@mastodonsweden.se · 5 days ago

@rolle @suihkulokki @MastodonEngineering Could we have this in @pachli as well, quick boosts? I hardly ever use quote posts.

#pachli

Roni Rolle Laukkarinen

@rolle@mementomori.social · 5 days ago

@kallekn Shouldn't it already exist as a pretty basic feature in your preferences since 4.5+? If you have quote posts, you should have this already.

EDIT: Oh, somehow misread Pachli Android app... yeah, it's not implemented in all of the apps.

@suihkulokki @MastodonEngineering @pachli

Roni Rolle Laukkarinen

@rolle@mementomori.social · 6 days ago

What I mean specifically are these endless toggles everywhere. Click-click-click-click. Before it was just a click.

Also, why change the most used hashtags into a horizontal list? And what's with that huge button to show more pinned items? What was wrong with the old setup? The carousel wasn't great either, but I liked the version that showed them one below the other.

What problems are we actually trying to solve here?

I know these aren't shipped yet, but does anyone actually use Figma and discuss UX?

#UI #UX #MastoAdmin #Mastodon

2 media

Renaud Chaput

@renchap@oisaur.com · 5 days ago

@rolle I appreciate the feedback and the concerns here, but I want to point our that those changes are not for the sake of changing.

Our designer (and the various platform developers) are trying to solve many of the problems existing with those interface, while making space for some new features. All of this is deeply thought and discussed (internally, not sure how we could be more public on this) and designed in Figma (for all platforms) before implementation. Then changed if wrong.

Roni Rolle Laukkarinen

@rolle@mementomori.social · 6 days ago

I feel like my Mastodon fork will eventually go completely off-branch since I've been cherry-picking features anyway after 4.5. Some of the core ones just don't make sense to me.

#MastoAdmin #Mastodon

Timothy R. Butler

@trbutler@mastodon.faithtree.social · 6 days ago

@rolle I'd love to see a genuine fork that has the UI sensibility of your Bird UI…

Roni Rolle Laukkarinen

@rolle@mementomori.social · 6 days ago

@trbutler My fork has included Mastodon Bird UI from the beginning, but it's just a modified Mastodon and nothing "official" like glitch-ui https://github.com/mementomori-social/mastodon

We do have more and more "features" though: https://help.mementomori.social/mementomori.social/instance-features

We'll see what happens in the future.