Oddbean new post about login | logout onboarding is somehow getting way worse. we're stopping all new new feature dev to focus our onboarding experience. we're not going to win if people give up before they even start.
What's got worse? 🤔
the onboarding experience, in damus at least.
I thought maybe you were thinking of something(s) specific as part of the process?
In our case it’s some bugs that really ruin the process. And some UX as well. We will fix it
Ah I see. I was wondering if maybe eg has nip05 become an important factor? Joining a paid relay? Maybe not now that the spambots are away (for now). Cos that would be very tricky added onboarding experience problems, for people on zero sats, people totally unaware of lightning. (ie people who have no come from bitcointwitter).
yes there are many things, we had an hour long meeting about it and identified like 5+ pain points that we are going to be working on. Biggest one is cold-start cache and having no profiles to search for. We're going to look into a profile precache of all of the users on the network. Should be pretty small and should work well until we get much larger. Another one is the QR code experience, damus QR code scanning is janky and downright broken at times. We were looking into ways to load more profile data through the nprofile, even without and internet connection. Profile picture and banner optimization, a lot of profile data fails to load on bad connections because things are not optimized across the board. Onboarding checklist to guide users to set up missing things. Lots more
All good points. 99% of onboarding experiences I have seen. is someone convincing another to install nostr, and the first thing the new user does after setup is look for the person who purple pilled them. which in most cases fails. so I think the two ideas of caching profiles + QR sharing more data about a profile are both great enhancements. Thank you!
it's easy if you take out the lightning aspects of it :(
I got a streamer with a dedicated audience to agree to try streaming on nostr via zap.stream, but he's primarily iOS and getting everything working so that he could recieve zaps was a nightmare, he gave up. the good thing is that creating stream overlays would have been a walk in the park.
Even trying to create a custodial wallet on primal? Or were you trying to avoid custodial solutions?
was in may, pretty sure the Primal wallet wasn't out yet.
Ooo
He can create a WoS or Blink wallet and paste the address on the Nip-5 space or his desired client. What’s difficult about it?
Finally, a reasonable perspective. I'd add that developers should also make sure basic features actually work before piling more on. I'm not sure if this applies to this client, but it does to the ones I've used on Android. nostr:nevent1qqsyelp5kah5dqyc7p3tecr8f389rehdrda3x9hghrc54n3nzaxzwggppemhxue69uhkummn9ekx7mp0qgsr9cvzwc652r4m83d86ykplrnm9dg5gwdvzzn8ameanlvut35wy3grqsqqqqqpqjvtsx
Yes. This is often overlooked. But the number 1 complaint I have always heard on any platform I've managed is "I can't log in".
Number one complaint I’ve heard is that new accounts appear blank and can’t follow people. Nostr account creation and propagation is bugged. Need DHT badly.
DHT maxxing
It's still hard to make your first follow on ditto. When you create a new user and try to follow someone it often doesnt. But if you go to another client, do it, and come back, it works. That said, overall, ditto is still by far my favourite client. I am #ditto only now.
is it just me getting a lot of iphone storage space taken up from damus? sometimes I forget to empty the cache and it starts filling up again, can get pretty large https://image.nostr.build/bb2fd8f854602428061fd3d938448178534f8e20b86dca246e659b86206515bf.jpg
Lol why does this sound familiar
I like the app a lot. But yeah if you don’t have a background I can see it being a challenge. I’m still wondering why I get push notifications for an nsec I’m not logged in with (iOS)??
@danieldaquino don’t we disable push on logout?
I’ll persevere with it for a bit longer
The opening “who to follow” has been stale since it started & i have to close it every time i open the app
you likely have the developer mode option enabled to always show onboarding?
Indeed i did, Thanks. Is it algo controled? It never recommended anyone new
It’s really basic, just a fixed list. We would love to improve it if anyone wanted to take a stab at something better.
I could create an ideal formula but coding does not come from these fingers unless its stealing bits of htlm
I know Will is not the biggest fan, but could be people discovery DVM https://www.data-vending-machines.org/kinds/5301/
Don't DVM algos just serve up a variation of the fixed lists, since they look at what people are already looking at, and everyone is looking at the fixed list? I don't think we're going to get around actually analyzing the content, rather than the content-providers.
It really depends. They could dynamically analyse some recent (popular) content, group it into categories and suggest users that wrote that content. This way suggested users would be up to date and not some chosen people forever, regarding if they are active etc.
Yeah, but that's the Catch-22 I mean. You have to already be popular, to have popular content. That's why follow lists have been getting more and more similar, with recommended or trending content often being the same 5 people over and over, with every post they make. Gigantic bifurcation in the number of followers (200k versus 20), is the cause, and we can't end the cycle until we figure out how to surface unpopular-but-interesting content.
I mean, "popular" can be defined in many ways. It's really a matter of implementation. It can be absolute, but it could also be adjusted in terms of time/follower number etc. it's really a matter of implementation and what is wanted.
Add gif buddy plz ☺
this is great news. people don’t want to follow a bunch of people they don’t know and then have to figure out how to remove them. they just go elsewhere. nostr:note1fn7rfdm0g6qf3urzhnsxwnzw28nw6xmmzvtw3w83ft8rx96vyussv7yava
It took me a week to get nostr to work. Almost gave up myself
Yes, solid features and better experience, starting from the onboarding, I'm just working on this.
I was about to build a prototype for this. In my mind the basic is: download an open app store (eg: nostr:nprofile1qy2hwumn8ghj7erfw36x7tnsw43z7un9d3shjqpq0r8xl2njyepcw2zwv3a6dyufj4e4ajx86hz6v4ehu4gnpupxxp7slzk40u ), install Amber, create a new identity, install one mobile client (chat/social or both), login with Amber.
I'm focusing on the creating the profile, I think this is the first crucial step, then we can redirect the user to any app, web or native. Amber is great, but unfortunately is not cross platform.
FTW
i think onboarding should be a lot simpler - generate secret in the background - present the user with 'best content' on nostr like flowers, scenery pics, popular accounts - allow user to browse more hash tags - if user starts following people then remind that he should backup keys if he wants to continue using this account - periodically remind to save a username if he hasnt done so - remind the user to have an #introductions post to be welcomed i guess this could be called lazy onboarding / gradual engagement / soft signup. the idea is dont overwhelm user with nostr technicalities
Gradual engagement is a step towards algorithm. I think organic growth is where it's at. Perhaps more important is to share content from nostr.
I like this. If someone doesn't engage much then they won't care enough to be reminded to back up their nsec. If someone does engage then gently reminding them to back it up and give themselves a username is a great way spread out onboarding info to get them to not feel overwhelmed by the technical details of it all.
Idea 💡 - design onboarding experience as close as it gets to real life (when arriving at a new community/place; specifics would be determined by the vision behind Damus) - prioritize connection - have @damus official account be ran by humans who love other humans (guides, mentors, teachers), after first prompt (ie automatic personal first DM guiding) - have @damus extend a step by step exploration of the app environment user-customized one interaction at a time. - will figure out scaling as go/test
Perhaps direct people to follow hashtags based on their interests instead. Simultaneously, put effort to build out how quality content within those hashtags is discovered (using an algorithm, not just “most recently posted”). Through the hashtag path, people discover the best content for the things they care about, and as a 2nd order discovery, the people they want to follow directly.
I told you this a few days ago: #Nostr lacks more diversity and pluralism. It's very easy to find people who are extreme right-wingers and Trump supporters, as well as BitCoin lovers. But it's harder to find people who are left-wing democrats, LGBT, culture-seekers, and with a diversity of interests (from books, games, movies, music, etc.). Of course, people are generally more comfortable with the diversity and pluralism that exists on platforms like BlueSky or Threads. Personally, I only continue with Nostr because I like the more technological aspect of the protocol; otherwise, I would have already deleted my account. In general, Nostr's content is very bad and only puts off new people.
They're all on Mastodon crying their eyes out because they think Trump SS will kill the queers while reporting any dissenting opinions to instance admins. That's not diversity. I'm fine with them sticking to Mastodon. Having different protocols and approaches to decentralized services is much more diverse then having one that's in constant civil war.
Keep up the great work Will! My 2 cents: onboarding is actually not bad, it's the speed having signed up. Posts don't load. Websites don't open. Can be painful... (This is a general piece of feedabck, not specific to Damus)
2 sats not 2 cents 🤣
Its been awful for a while. Though I've never heard a complaint about damus. People cant make their frist follow on many clients, so just leave. Other clients should follow your lead.
One thing I know you said you were looking at - which I still think fits into the onboarding category is making Damus a NIP-46 remote signer. Helping new Damus users onboard to not just Damus but other clients too showcases the benefits of nostr more broadly and I think having your main iOS client be your remote signer makes a lot of sense.
Your daily driver acting as a signer makes a ton. of sense. That daily driver will not be a Twitter-clone, though.
What do you think the daily driver will be?
Chat Interface that taps into interoperable communities :Zapchat:
Chat apps are destined to be the authenticators and vice versa. Currently they are called Gmail though.
Agreed 😂 . That makes it clear who we're taking on here. Btw: why isn't pubky's interface chat-first?
It is never wise trying to compete with Signal first. We will build an authenticator app first, and if it grew to char so be it, but a standalone authenticator app is still useful and simple. After all, even Google has a standalone authenticator.
Not surprising when your endgame is to become #nostrfamous. 🤦🏻♂️
this is indeed the problem. that's why I threw away my popular keypair so I could focus on building a nostr experience that isn't based on follows at all
To me, it feels like YakiHonne is doing the best job creating an app that tries to get its’s users more active on Nostr, with features that people can actually use. They have added a wallet generating feature, which allows you to utilize their service with a wallet specifically for their app. Similar to primal, but it’s not KYC and it’s not as limiting. You can add your own wallet to it as well via NWC, but it seems smarter to have a separate wallet from my hodl account. It looks like you can create as many wallets as you want, further allowing you to anonymize your online activities by splitting up activities between wallets. The theme isn’t as pretty as Damus, but it’s more functional and the devs seems humble, which is the complete opposite of this guy. Anyone who’s profile says “I made this, this and this”, is an attention seeking douchebag. Also, OPA seems to be where it’s at if you actually want an education on bitcoin. Nostr reminds me more of a frat house and OPA is the library.
nostr:nevent1qqs8syhtgly0cjnqzmyn8d4rmhcmyt92x5j0ge3c22wyx644mth6fmgpremhxue69uhkummnw3ez6ur4vgh8wetvd3hhyer9wghxuet59upzqrvv24h5lpvq2z9q2lhzgqq2kcawlzdw9sl0mjqp3tjd93eal4xhqvzqqqqqqyxa27sf
The devs in question are those who have been conducting the hard fucking work to make nostr work, after many failures and mistakes. We lost our position as f judgement when believing machines would do the dirty work for us to cut the costs at ground zero when the developers hard work has made the emperors armada obsolete. People don’t need the splitting headaches of unfucked congas to live the biblical judgements divine heavens @ZEUS Who is the dev tags blocking when money?
Untapped congas 😭
#Nostr's payment infrastructure is the problem is hard to make payments is hard to send/receive bitcoin is hard to change wallets on clients a whole team dealing with identity a whole team dealing with auth a whole team dealing with privacy a whole team dealing with billing dealing with payment infrastructure is a total nightmare
NOSTR sucks
no bad teams only bad leaders
founder’s mindset is KEY
i’m the founder of Bitcoin Bank
8 years trying to get fix the infrastructure problem
i will solve it = payment/identity/security/privacy infrastructure #Bitcoin #Nostr #Internet
we need to help people to do all at once in just one single place
we need more founders
people crazy enough to go and start crazy things
if we think about the greatest advancements in technology, humanity, economics, and environmental sustainability that have improved our quality of life, they all originated with founders: those brave enough to embark on unconventional journeys
and the fucking crypto bros ( i understand them ) i worked in tech startups i know very well environments full of testosterone
Good approach but we also need good user experience once people have joined.
Agree.
I've seen too many people come and go from companies because their first few weeks were so disorganized. I would largely blame the onboarding. However, I also can't help but wonder if those people even tried to help themselves when they were lost in the chaos. Taking initiative goes a long way and is generally an important characteristic of a driven person.
Care to elaborate?
We spent a lot of time trying to onboard BTC Layer 2 projects, even kicked off a campaign to using decentralized media, with over 30 BTC L2s joining and promoting it. However, in the end, only Bitmain, Antpool, and BEVM used it occasionally. The main issue is that Nostr’s current Bitcoin user base isn’t compelling enough to convince them. As projects, they need a broader and more diverse Bitcoin audience. Additionally, they don’t feel particularly welcome on Nostr.
Correct. Glad this is a priority. Just catching wind of Notedeck now. Looks promising.
Absolutely.. as long as new arrivals are aware of #nostrPhilosophy nostr:nevent1qqswtk2t9agn4ftudyn4tn2ne5j7uppaka4zuwwcz89ftcpyw39ywssprpmhxue69uhhyetvv9ujuen0w4h8gctfdchxvmf0qgs94uregcr2zk6kg8394g3aqjh5evxh6hngkyw2edr726jxnr7233qrqsqqqqqpzpvrsr
From what I can see, you're not an iNfLuEnCoR that only has one message/interest. If so, check out: nostr:naddr1qvzqqqr4gupzp22rfmsktmgpk2rtan7zwu00zuzax5maq5dnsu5g3xxvqr2u3pd7qqxh5ctsvd5xzaryv4ekjemwhpux2l nostr:naddr1qvzqqqyx7cpzp22rfmsktmgpk2rtan7zwu00zuzax5maq5dnsu5g3xxvqr2u3pd7qyt8wumn8ghj7mnfv4kzumn0wd68yvfwvdhk6tcpz9mhxue69uhkummnw3ezuamfdejj7qq2vaex7atsvd5xzarngdzq0s And tell me where I'm wrong. Building this out now and need as much critique on the foundational premises/ideas as I can get.
