Innovative Adventures - If you had a chance to change anything of the Interface of Steemit, what would it be?
Why are some things like they are? What could be massively improved? What is actually fine as it is right now?
About a month ago, I wrote a post about my opinion about the Steemit signup. About what's wrong with it and how it blocks new users because it's lack of communication and guidance. Now, I decided to look deeper into Steemit itself.
I created a list with a bunch of items, however User Experience isn't only about me.
The Steemit User Experience is different for all Steemians.
My opinion is only a mere fraction of the giant ocean of users we got here - and each and every one of you have different experiences and opinions about Steemit. And I would like to know them.
I have to admit. I have been using Steemit for awhile now, and naturally you get used to all the unusual UI stuff to make it easier for yourself to simply accept the weird flow rather than to fight it and not try to understand it at all, because the only one suffering is you. BUT! This doesn't mean that this should not be improved. Users shouldn't have to fight or try to understand a flow.
A good User Experience/Interface is intuitive and if - for some reason - it's not that intuitive, it should guide.
That is why I am not just calling out to long-term users, but also to new users. What did you find weird during/after the sign up? Is it clear that it's best to first post in the introduceyourself section? Is it clear to use the known tags? Etcetera.
More and more often people are posting How-To-Steemit guides for newbies, along with explanations and tips. Sure, tips are always welcome, but the first two should be properly handled by the Interface itself.
So, here is my question to all of you:
Where do you think Steemit can massively improve on when it comes to the User Experience and the Interface? What is (extremely) confusing to you? What took you long to figure out?
If you had a chance to change anything of the Interface of Steemit - what would it be? What part of the Interface completely kills your Experience?
And most importantly, why would you change that? Why do you think that part needs to be improved? Why?!
Please comment your opinion below in the comment section and together, we can make Steemit better!
The interface is good and simple. I actually like it that way. One thing I would like, that I don't think should need implementing on a blockchain level, is multiple feeds. I would like to be able to create my own feeds such as steemit official posters like @ned, @dan, @steemitblog, @sneak, steemitguide etc in one feed, another feed with maybe my favourite food bloggers, another with my favourite travel bloggers etc etc, so that when I'm looking for specific content but the authors don't always tag in alignment with eachother I can still group them together in the one feed and check up on them knowing I haven't missed anything. I follow a lot of people, because there are a lot of minnows I want to boost and a lot of people whose content I don't want to miss but don't really need my vote.
It seems the focus of progress is on the blockchain. And I think there are still areas here that could use some work. Incentives for curating responsibly for example.
Thanks for your input!
I really like your idea - I also had a similar idea. There is a reason I only vote so less people is because I do not want to spam my blog. I basically just follow the people who I either know, engaged with before or who are active on my posts and I would like to do the same for them.
I really like your idea of different feeds. Would be amazing if you could name them yourself and then group the people you follow accordingly such as: Favorites, Minnows to vote on, Important Announcements etc.
Maybe even a seperate feed for all the resteems people do. I am mostly interested in people themselves who I follow, however I would like to check out content who those people is awesome and hence they resteemed.
This would be lovely, I am in full agreement.
Cool, would love that steemit interface will have a writing friendly interface where I could choose font, adjust font position, making caption looks better (more or less like blogging features).
Ah yes! That sounds lovely! Do you have an example of a platform which does it exactly as you like?
Wordpress or even LinkedIn article also good enough.
Ah, so something similar to this?
Did you know Steemit actually has a visual editor? You have to click on "Editor"
However, this could indeed be massively improved and be active on default :)
Right!
Oh my, how can I missed that. Thanks!
Haha, it's not your fault :) I just recently discovered it aswell!
haha, icic. Great tips, next time will have better-formated post.
You can also try steemstyle.com!
A suitable status for all.. In this way if all steemian will share their views, advice and feelings then may be easy for all to proceed in the way of success .
What do you mean with status?
I am saying about your writing for new comers.
I am afraid I am not sure what you mean.. Hehe.
Don't be afraid.. If you could n't understand.. I am helpless! Sorry
Gosh where do I start? I've been on here a few weeks now and I'm still trying to get my head around it!
I was fortunately that I was suggested to join by a friend, and he posted a 'guide' that another member wrote onto Facebook before I joined and I remember seeing that it was best to post under tje 'introduceyourself' tag.
But I was surprised at how little guidance there was for newbies like myself. It was straight in to the bulk of it! No guides and rules, no 'welcome, this is where you start' tips. Even writing posts can be tricky, there is a 'Markdown Styling Guide' but there isn't much in terms of help on it - and I swear some things dont work! I didn't even understand what 'Steem' and 'Steem Dollars' were and that it's a cryptocurrency! I've already messed up trying to cash out.
We have to remember though, that this is still in 'beta' mode, which means the curators are in testing stage, so I guess we're all the little mice in a maze working things out for them. It's how website designers iron out mistakes on newly built websites, they get people to test it for them.
So, hopefully, as time goes on, the curators will iron out these problems?
I can imagine! You exactly pointed out the issues I mentioned earlier in the post. I really do think, that if the confusion remains, people will drop out of Steemit again.
There actually is a visual editor inside the post creation, however I just discovered it myself too. Click on EDITOR and it will change the interface.
I am lucky that I know some basic HTML so I figured my way out of this, but you can't assume everybody does.
Also, I completely agree. The onboarding for new users is not sufficient at all. I remember there are simply 3 links in the beginning and that's it. I remember a post "Steemit for Dummies" or something, but it is probably lost underneath all the other posts.
This is actually a really important issue. Thank you for pointing that out.. I also had a friend who could explain me the basics, but if you're without that you're basically lost. If you haven't figured it out yet, I would love to help you out :)
I hope they will iron out the problems, but I think they also need to be aware of these problems in the first place. There are so many tiny and big problems, that they also can easily be overlooked. With this post, I am trying to unearth the problems so they can be solved.
A LOOOT!
Splitting blog !
More Minimal cool design !!!
A splitting blog? Minimal cool design? :D Do you have any amazing examples which represent such things?
Also, what about the smaller features? Are you happy with the way you can submit posts? How you browse through the platform and find posts? The search?
I meant to say split our blog to 1) our own posts and 2) re-steemed ones
It would be great if we could finally download images and Videoclips directly like FB allows to do
My reply should be a new article 😜
Searching for something is complicated in All areas especially our own stories.
Definitely! I hate scrolling and trying to find a post the author made if he resteems a lot!
Yeah, I agree :l When I am looking for a user i just use the url, haha
Thanks for this post @sjennon. I believe you already read my post. So, I'm more on more important features than the design like cover photo?
With the personal feed - archive, tags, date search, etc., It's like our portfolio.
Custom view
If there is one thing that I would add is as simple search button on my blog page where i can quickly look for old post, sometimes it's time consuming scrolling down or use the other search option that is present actually!
And also maybe have all the links of sites like steemd, steemstats, steemwhales, steemreports etc... all that concern steemit on a nice corner for easy access just by a click!
So a more advanced search? Yeah that sounds pretty good actually!
Yes exactly, a quick search!
So glad that you like the idea!