I’ve been using Diaspora fairly heavily since shortly after G+ announced it’s impending departure, and for the most part I’m really happy with it. These are my thoughts and suggestions, and I appreciate any feedback. I also now that I haven’t done any programming since 2003, so I am absolutely not up to speed on things, and may not be technically correct in everything. I’m approaching this from a UX standpoint, not a programmer’s eye. Also note that my job and lifestyle mean I predominantly access the Internet from mobile devices, only rarely using a desktop, and that likely influences my impressions - but amongst non-programmers, this is becoming the norm. Many people predominantly use phones and tablets, and reserve computers for only the tasks that require them.
I’m organizing this like the classic film, The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly. The last category isn’t about the software at all, but rather about the overall experience of a new user (and, coincidentally, where I could help with wiki’s or similar, if I better understood how things were intended to work). As I’m making suggestions, the Bad and The Ugly are more verbose than The Good - please don’t think that means I believe the system is Bad or Ugly, just that I’m focusing on areas to improve rather than what’s already good.
The Good
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Let me start by saying that Diaspora is a great social network, and I want to thank everyone who’s contributed. Having been a G+ user from its inception, it’s great to see such a small group put together something of similar quality.
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The ability to follow tags is a great addition over G+ or Facebook functionality. I can see interesting posts about things I care about, even if I don’t follow the users making them. This is a wonderful feature!
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The website runs smoothly on every platform. It’s quick and feels great. Too many websites feel laggy or slow, especially on mobile.
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Reliability. Since joining, I’ve seen one pod go down for almost a day, but the network remained stable. I’ve never been unable to access it. I’ve never seen an error message, or had an action flake out on me. I often get error messages across the web - even Google searches sometimes just say “Something went wrong” with a sad robot, but not here. I’m impressed!
The Bad
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The lack of a true native app means no Android or iOS notifications, which is a major drawback. This isn’t an easy fix, and I understand that, so I’m not expecting change here, but there should be recognition that it’s one of the biggest downsides to Diaspora for a mobile user.
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There are two versions of the website that can be accessed via mobile, “desktop” and “mobile”. Confusingly, the desktop version changes when viewed on a smaller screen, so it appears different than when viewed on a desktop. There is no clear indicator for a new user which is which, and switching requires pressing a button labeled “Toggle Mobile” but doesn’t tell you which mode you’re in. Yes, eventually I figured it out, but it’s not intuitive. Furthermore, the mobile version lacks much functionality - users cannot mention, vote in polls, block users, ignore posts, preview posts, etc. The desktop version seems to work flawlessly, but as I understand it some people find the text links too small, and others don’t like that it downloads full size images. I would recommend that the fully functioning version be default for new users. I also recommend changing the Toggle Mobile link to be more clear - I suggest that it read “Switch to Full Site” and “Switch to Light Site” or similar, making it clear what happens when you touch it. Calling the full version “desktop” is confusing, because it does not look the same as what is seen on a desktop, even if the underlying code is the same. Every new user I’ve talked to has struggled with this. Remember, for many users, the mobile version is the first experience they have with Diaspora, and providing them with such limited functionality creates a poor first impression.
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Notifications are often repeated as unread hours after I’ve marked them read. I’m guessing this is a federation issue.
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Diaspora needs block functionality. Right now ignore appears to prevent new posts from showing in your stream, and (I think) prevent notifications if the ignored person comments on something you’re subscribed to. If a person is really offensive, you should have the ability to see absolutely nothing from them (or ideally) “comment hidden” that can be clicked to view it). Users shouldn’t be shown comments from blocked users on other people’s posts - this will really become a very serious problem if trolls start using the network.
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G+'s greatest feature was its Collections, and adding similar functionality to Diaspora would set it apart from other social networks. Basically, similar to tagging, posts would be included in various Collections each user made. You could subscribe to some or all of another user’s Collections. For example, I could choose to see all of Bob’s posts about mountain photography, but not see any of Bob’s posts about the Denver Broncos. There are many different ways I can imagine this being achieved, and I’m not suggesting that Google’s solution is the best one, but being able to selectively subscribe to some topics from a given user is an amazing feature missing from Diaspora. Of these suggestions, this is also the most difficult to implement. Aspects lets you choose how much to share with a user, but nothing allows you to choose how much of a user’s content you see.
The Ugly
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A new user doesn’t know what a pod is or whether it matters. I’ve seen wiki pages that attempt to explain it, but none have done a good job from a non-technical standpoint. Frankly, even after weeks of asking questions, I’m still a little confused. It’s clear that users can follow other users on other pods, but I’m not certain how public posts, searches, and tags work across pods.
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The same problem exists for the Federation (apologize if I’m using terms incorrectly). I understand there are other networks like Mastodon which interlink with Diaspora. I’ve been told that which pod you are on makes a difference in whether these tools interact, but none of it makes sense to me. Mastadon is, as I understand it, a Twitter-like service with short messages. How would a Mastadon user see the long-form posts from a Diaspora user? If all these networks work together, why does it matter which I’m on? Are they truly interconnected, or just cross-posting?
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When I created an account on Discourse, a DiscoBot walked me through much of the functionality of the site. Meanwhile, I can’t find a good tutorial for Diaspora anywhere. Guides that I’ve seen appear geared more towards programmers and tech-savvy power users, and not towards ordinary people. Overall, this adds to the general impression (along with the poor mobile experience by default) that ordinary users are not welcome here. There are good guides for Markdown, but not the site itself.
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Perhaps the most difficult problem for Diaspora to fix is the identity crisis it has. The wiki’s I’ve seen brag about its privacy model, and aspects do a good job of keeping information private. However, keeping information private makes it hard for new users to find and connect to people. Fortunately, Diaspora also has the public post model, using tags to make it easy to be seen. I have no problem with both features being in the same network, that’s a good thing. But new users need to be walked through explanations of these two models so they can make informed choices about how they should be using Diaspora. Instead, they’re told how great the privacy is, and that they should tag posts, with no real discussion helping them make choices.
I’m hoping this doesn’t come off as too negative - I really do like this system so far. But I think that it’s important to hear and understand the experiences of new users, rather than just long time users. Things that are obvious to a long time user might be incomprehensible to someone just arriving without the same background and experiences.
