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.

EDIT: The image I attached is from photon.lemmy.world, which I just realized is using the outdated version of Photon, I have updated the image to the updated current photon version from phtn.app. There are a lot of improvements made.

  • mystik@lemmy.worldEnglish
    0·
    11 days ago

    /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.

  • Sanctus@lemmy.worldEnglish
    0·
    10 days ago

    Photon is dope, pretty sure its developed by our very own Admiral Picard. But I haven’t seen a Lemmy UI that I didnt like yet.

  • morrowind@lemmy.mlEnglish
    0·
    10 days ago

    I think we need to actually do some new user testing, instead of endless discussion with nothing to back it up.

  • lightnsfw@reddthat.comEnglish
    0·
    11 days ago

    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.

    • JigglySackles@lemmy.worldEnglish
      0·
      10 days ago

      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.

      • lightnsfw@reddthat.comEnglish
        0·
        10 days ago

        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).

    • hobovision@lemm.eeEnglish
      0·
      10 days ago

      It’s got a compact view that is pretty much why I’d be using if I started. I think it makes sense to default to the “cozy” view, even if that is the most bass ackwards naming I’ve seen. The reason being is that “most” people prefer that view and are the same people that wouldn’t bother looking for a setting to change, they’d just nope on out because they got overwhelmed.

      Default “cozy” in desktop mode

      “compact” in desktop mode

      I think compact looks decent in mobile view as well, but since the parent post is about desktop UI that’s what I’m showing.

      • lightnsfw@reddthat.comEnglish
        0·
        10 days ago

        Compact is certainly better than what OP showed. Frankly I’m fine with driving everyone that thinks the “cozy” view is acceptable away from this platform. I’m not interested in whatever other terrible opinions they’d be sharing here.

  • ubergeek@lemmy.todayEnglish
    0·
    11 days ago

    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.

  • netvor@lemmy.worldEnglish
    0·
    9 days ago

    I believe adopting Photon as the default UI could make Lemmy far more appealing to the average Reddit user.

    How are you supporting that belief? Any data? Any A/B testing?

    I don’t want to sound too harsh, but you have sort of marked yourself as a representative of “average OG ex-redditor” or “average joe”. Actually, you refer to “average” quite a lot. But honestly, without any supporting evidence, it’s just words to make the proposal more appealing or relevant. If we remove all this cruft (which might be supported by anecdotal study, but that should barely count, if even), what arguments are here that actually remain?

    Don’t get me wrong, if you said that you like “something like Photon” more than the current default UI, then great! It is awesome that other alternatives exist and when people find them, it’s great to share the review. (It’s how I have discovered so much of great software!) But then again, it’s all subjective, right? In your proposal, you seem to tend to state lot of these subjective opinions as if they were objective, which to me makes the proposal just far less convincing.

  • FeelzGoodMan420@eviltoast.orgEnglish
    0·
    11 days ago

    Nah that looks like convoluted shit. Simple is better. Like old Reddit. Your screenshot looks like new Reddit dogshit.

    • cabbage@piefed.socialEnglish
      0·
      11 days ago

      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.

      • FeelzGoodMan420@eviltoast.orgEnglish
        0·
        10 days ago

        Definitely personal preference. I prefer minimal interfaces and logical layouts. This becomes even more crucial for mobile.

  • LovableSidekick@lemmy.worldEnglish
    0·
    10 days ago

    Different OG ex-redditor here. I think Lemmy’s UI is vastly superior. But full disclosure, I used old reddit.

    How is it clear that Lemmy’s growth is nearing a plateau? And why does Lemmy need broader growth? That seems like a solution in search of a problem. A major advantage of not being a corporate social media property is not having to think like one.

        • Blaze (he/him)@feddit.orgEnglish
          0·
          10 days ago

          45k monthly active users on 14 October
          44k monthly active users on 11 December

          The first graph is generally considered the most relevant to assess the activity on the platform

          • LovableSidekick@lemmy.worldEnglish
            0·
            10 days ago

            On a longer time scale the monthly active users has been steadily trending down for 4 months, from 48k to 44k. But the users per day has been steadily growing - apart from whatever TF happened on Oct 14 when it suddenly dropped by 50k if I’m reading it right. Database problem?

            I’m kind of curious how these readings are taken. The Fox News claim of being “America’s most watched cable news network” is based on a Neilson rating that records TVs multiple times a day, which heavily overweights ones people keep on it all day whether they’re watching or not. Fox does much worse on another Neilson stat called the “qume” which only records one hit per day per TV if that TV was tuned to a channel at all during that day - a much better indicator that people deliberately switched to a channel to watch it for a while. I don’t suppose we know how these Lemmy averages are arrived at.

            Anyway, the posts and comments per day - which to me defines “activity” better than number of users, are both steady upward lines - unless fewer users who are more active is a bad trend.

  • FrostyTrichs@walledgarden.xyzEnglish
    0·
    10 days ago

    For those who may not be aware there are alternative front ends available for Lemmy.

    MLMYM is like old reddit. You can see what it looks like here:

    mlmym.walledgarden.xyz

    Voyager is multi platform interface that also offers a Lemmy frontend. Our implementation is here:

    voyager.walledgarden.xyz

    • Grilipper54@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      0·
      9 days ago

      I am not as tech savvy as most people on Lemmy and I use voyager without any issues. I thought it was quite easy to get up and running.