4mo ago

Voyager difficult to start using for existing Lemmy users

I keep hearing of people who have used Lemmy for a few days or a few weeks and want to start using a mobile version – often Voyager.

They open Voyager for the first time, and get a screen with a button for logging in. They get a choice for which Lemmy instance to join, but no place for entering their existing username or password.

I've told them that "in the first screen there is a button that is very difficult to notice, allowing you to use a pre-existing Lemmy username. Find that semi-hidden button, click it, and you can login."

It is of course a working workaround to pre-emptively tell people that the button exists, is just very well hidden, and needs to be clicked by most people who download Voyager. But still, it would be cool if the screen for new users could be altered so that the ability to log in with a pre-existing username was equally visible as the choice to create a new account!

31 comments

People shouldn’t even have to choose their instance. People should type their full username.
Fx: meldrik@lemmy.wtf should be enough and then their password.
- I’m not sure how that would work. When you sign in you can use your username or email. So if you type example@domain.com there is no way to know if you’re trying to login to the instance at domain.com or login with your email ending in domain.com, to some other instance.
  Edit: and it can’t just assume and try domain.com first, because then if it’s not what the user intended then you just sent your login credentials accidentally to a random domain 🙃
  
  You would only be able to login this way with your username. If you by mistake use your email, then it simply doesn’t resolve to a Lemmy server and the login fails.
  Meldrik@notlemmyserver.com would simply fail, because that Lemmy instance does not exist.
- I love this approach
  
  It recycles people’s knowledge about emails in a nice way. It could even have some sort of autocomplete as you start typing the instance name to prevent mistyping.
- Damn, that's simple and intuitive. This should be universal.
  
  I'd like a "write here or choose from the list below" approach :)
I confirm, it is massively unintuitive. Layout should be updated to make it easier to just login to your instance.
- Can you provide a quick mockup of how you’d update the layout?
  
  Hey,
  Just wanted to say thank you for your work. Some comments here are a bit harsh, and forget how far behind we would be without Voyager
I've told them that "in the first screen there is a button that is very difficult to notice, allowing you to use a pre-existing Lemmy username. Find that semi-hidden button, click it, and you can login."
This is the first I’ve heard of any problems with this screen, so please encourage them to reach out directly, or post in this community.
- I asked for a person without a Lemmy account to install Voyager and make some screenshots. So, here's what my experience was like, and apparently that of others as well. I hope it helps understand in which way the average user is an idiot :) Here goes:
  First, I launch the program. This is the screen I get:
  So, I've already got an account, so I don't need to join Lemmy. Therefore, I choose the other option, "Pick another server", in order to tell which server my user account is on, and log in to that server.
  Then I'm in this screen:
  I choose Sopuli and all I get is a form for creating a new username. But why would I want to create a new one? I tried long-pressing the sopuli.xyz text, and got nothing.
  Obviously, in the first screen there is the "Log in" button, but because there was "Join" and "The other option", I had assumed the "other option" must include the login. The text can be interpreted that way as well.
  And, at the point when I was already at the list of Lemmy servers, the "Log in" option was nowhere to see, and I didn't come up with the idea of going back to the first screen, because I assumed I had already seen both of the buttons there, and I was sure I had pressed the button that was not "Join lemm.ee".
  Then I gave up. Some days later I accidentally launched the program again when I was supposed to do something completely different on my phone. Oops. But, the good thing was, I got to that first screen again. And I double-checked that I'm indeed pressing the "Pick another server" button in order to log in with my pre-existing username, and then I noticed the Log In text that is not a button. And pressed it and found out that yes, Voyager does actually support using pre-existing usernames! And nowadays I'm using Lemmy.
  Now I've heard of a few people who have installed Lemmy and all of them have first given up, and then tried again after I've told them to "look for the hidden Log In button in the first screen".
  "Log in" is what most people will want to do, so people will assume that it will be one of the most prominent buttons. There can be reasons not to make it more prominent than it is; in that case the next screen, with the list of servers, could have a button for "Actually, what I want to do is log in with a username I already have!"
  
  Hey, thanks for the feedback!
  So for the select an instance page, I tried to make it so you could login so you can't get "stuck" here: if you press the ellipse button in the header, there is an option to login. Maybe I could add an ellipse button to each instance, I'm not sure. That might be too much noise.
  For the landing page, maybe something like this? Please note, I want to keep the "join" prominent so that new users, without an existing lemmy account, can easily sign up.
  (pretend "create an account" is in grey as a label. I made it red to show as a change)
  
  Thank you, that's very valuable information!
sorry about the poor edit
Maybe something along these lines to make the front page a bit easier to understand? for new comers and also faster to log in for older users?

31 comments