As a strong supporter of open-source and community-funded projects like Lemmy, which prioritize serving users over investors, I believe Lemmy has significant potential, and that’s why I am here. However, it is clear that its growth is nearing a plateau in its current form. Despite the surge in users following Reddit’s API changes, Lemmy continues to primarily attract tech-savvy individuals, politically left-aligned users, and those accustomed to old Reddit. For Lemmy to reach the broader average general audience, meaningful changes are necessary.
The rise of Bluesky demonstrates the importance of ease of use and a user-friendly design. Its polished and familiar interface is a key reason for its growth and appeal as an alternative to platforms like X/Twitter. This same ease of use is what Mastodon lacked, leading to its initial hype fading quickly. The average user is unlikely to adapt to something that feels complicated or unfamiliar, and this challenge also applies to Lemmy.
As someone who started as an average Reddit user and became more tech-savvy over time, I can confidently say that first impressions matter. When users first visit lemmy.world, the default UI is often enough to discourage them from staying. Most will not explore the homepage sidebar to explore, figure out and switch to one of the alternative UIs available, which is unfortunate because a better UI could make a huge difference.
This is why I propose that large servers like lemmy.world adopt Photon UI as the default web interface. Photon is currently the best and most mature alternative UI, offering a visually appealing, modular design that feels familiar to users of new Reddit. It makes excellent use of screen space and provides customization options like compact and cozy views. Unlike some other alternative UIs, Photon is actively maintained and ready for widespread use, although in no way is it perfect, this can also help bring in more contributors to the project development.
While it is important to continue offering other UIs as options, I believe adopting Photon as the default UI could make Lemmy far more appealing to the average Reddit user. First impressions are crucial, and the current default UI has turned off many potential users. If we want Lemmy to succeed as a true Reddit alternative, we need to prioritize user experience and accessibility. Thankfully today, Lemmy still continues to be THE biggest Reddit alternative, while our userbase is still considerably smaller than Reddit, it’s the biggest of any alternatives, and Lemmy continues to somewhat be in the spotlight for those seeking alternatives, we can’t let growth stagnate, it’s high time we make the platform more welcoming and appealing for the average joe.
I don’t use lemmy, so I don’t have to suffer it’s UI. I use Mbin/Kbin and the UI is almost perfect with the settings I changed, I get like 8-9 posts simply laid out with a little thumbnail and the title, no useless features or buttons. Just like old classic reddit, just slightly less compact.
But this “Photon UI” looks absolutely disgusting, I get it might be how the modern web is, but modern isn’t always a good thing, especially when talking about UI/UX.
Eww. I don’t like that screenshot at all. I vastly prefer the more info dense version I use that looks like classic reddit.
I thought the point of Linux was the ability to customize anything, including your layout?
Not criticizing, just confused as to who this use case would be aimed at.
While I do favour that UI improvements are needed - in particular for guest views and community sidebars, I’d say defo chasing the “big social” trends and UIs is not the way to go. Heck, I left Reddit partly because of the new UI (I know about old.reddit, it’s just there’s no promise of any kind to maintain it).
I don’t think Reddit’s redesign is a good thing to aim for.
You really trying to convince us with a screenshot of the ugliest ui i ever seen huh
Yeah I used old Reddit. I don’t want something that looks like new Reddit
You both aren’t wrong… But this isn’t about you.
If it’s not about me then why does it exist.
.world in a nutshell
Personally, I think this looks great. I love the command palate and the display modes, and it checks the other boxes, for me at least.
Nah, the current UI is fine. We don’t need fancy shit on a link aggregator. Reddit went to shit after “updating” the UI.
Your opinions of “good” or “best” aren’t the same for everyone.
We tried at communick.news a while ago, it didn’t work so well. Perhaps the situation has improved, so it’s worth to take a look.
Hey, how are you doing?
https://phtn.app/ has the latest version, seems quite faster
Nah that looks like convoluted shit. Simple is better. Like old Reddit. Your screenshot looks like new Reddit dogshit.
People have their preferences, and that’s fine. I certainly think we would benefit from different instances making use of different user interfaces by default, appealing in return to different kinds of people.
I’ve heard some people are not into Piefed because it’s too bare bones or something. For me, that’s exactly why I love it. Besides, they have even added (optional) support for decorative drop shadows - it’s futuristic as fuck, as far as I’m concerned.
Definitely personal preference. I prefer minimal interfaces and logical layouts. This becomes even more crucial for mobile.
Lemmy will be getting a new, more modern UI sometime soon.
It is being actively developed and you can even try it out today: https://github.com/LemmyNet/lemmy-ui-leptos
Has anyone deployed it yet? Curious to see what it looks like, but too lazy to deploy it myself
Apparently lemm.ee has it deployed: next.lemm.eeedit: though I’ll keep using this UI or Photon if it stays like that. It is, at the moment, very ugly.edit 2: wrong information
Wait, are you sure? I thought it was only a project by @sunaurus@lemm.ee : https://lemm.ee/post/27356044
Oh lol, my bad. Didn’t see that.
That’s too much padding. It needs to be more like Hacker News.
Are you aware of https://old.lemmy.world/ ?
Oh nice. It’s like reddit with res. I like that a lot.
Glad to hear!
- With what I think are near enough default settings, Voyager shows me about 9 stories. It doesn’t feel cramped and the layout is regular, everything lines up.
- With what I think are near enough default settings, my browser here shows me 14 stories, with a good accessible font size by default and me easily zooming out to 80%. It doesn’t feel cramped and the layout is regular, everything lines up.
- I can see 2 stories in that screenshot. Why would I want to have something that’s at least 5 times worse, it feels cramped and parts of it line up I guess?
/me pines for the days of protocol over interface. NNTP + killfiles were the bees knees. Then we could just all pick our own interface to connect to any lemmy host.
I literally hate the new reddit UI, as do most peeps I’ve spoken with…
The new reddit UI is designed to push ads, and push premium subs.
That UI is dogshit. Lemmy is a link aggregator and you’re saying it should show 2 links on the screen at a time? New Reddit is shit for the same reason.
I see this issue through so many newer UIs. Sure it looks nice in a way. But it looses all functionality. We have an info dense application, pairing that with a infosparse UI just causes frustration and excessive scrolling and clicking. Info density matters.
Yea, I hate that trend. Especially when it’s used for information pages about products and you have to constantly scroll around and deal with weird slideshow things to find what you’re looking for (if useful information is even present at all).
