[dahoramanodoceu]

I tried setting up a usable mastadon and distopia account, not only are the interfaces shit, but during my signup I had 0 explanation about the process (where's the FAQ and blog posts explaining stuff?).

Also, during the sign-up, both Mastadon and Distopia give me a list of instances , but close to Zero information about the instances, so after some failed google searches i just randomly picked one and was dumped into shitty web UI with no information whatsoever.

In the end I had a bunch of unanswered questions (how do i link instances, or do i have to do a seperate sign up for each one?), so i just gave up.

[dahoramanodoceu]

It's pertinent to add that this lack of documentation is recurrent in a lot of FLOSS projects. I don't think that software like linux and mastadon and distopia need to be simplified, they just need people who are good at explaining stuff to spend more time doing just that. Instead, projects geared to the lay user like ubuntu and distopia think pretty UI and graphics are what drive traffic. I wholeheartedly disagree.

What makes for a rewarding User-Experience is first and foremost getting shit done (aka challenge/reward), not the resolution of the feedback sprite or the trendiness of your color-scheme/layout.

[dahoramanodoceu]

and, so, to drive user adoption you aren't required as a rule to shorten the time-to-accomplish-distance between the two elements of the first challenge / reward, there is such thing as making it too easy, as growth / prowess also drive adoption. Instead, look to creating a clear path to accomplish the first few tasks, that is, those tasks that pretty much every user will want to do to early on "get in the game."