Diaspora Usability Discussion
Sean Tilley Tue 12 Feb 2013 9:27PMPublicSeen by 72I think it'd be good for us to consider the interface of Diaspora as a whole. While most of us could make the case that it's pretty good, I think we could make some great proposals for something along the lines of Gnome's "100 Papercut" initiatives, in which we can take long-standing usability issues, and consider how best to fix them.
Set Publisher to be "Public" by default
proposal by Sean Tilley Closed Tue 26 Feb 2013 3:38PM
This is a usability trend I've noticed with a lot of Diaspora newcomers. Many newcomers will make Limited posts when in reality, they meant to make a public one to introduce themselves. This hurts discoverability, and frustrates the user. If a newcomer is too frustrated, they will likely end up just going back to Facebook.
I propose that we have the Publisher on Diaspora be set to the Public scope by default, with the option being more clear that the user would only need to use the drop-down to make a post private to an Aspect. Public could sit at the top of the drop-down, and anything else could be located under a separator underneath that.
Results
| Results | Option | Votes | % of votes cast | % of eligible voters | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Agree | 3 | 19 | 2 |    | |
| Abstain | 2 | 13 | 1 | ||
| Disagree | 11 | 69 | 7 |         | |
| Block | 0 | 0 | 0 | ||
| Undecided | 133 | 89 |             |
16 of 149 votes cast (10% participation)
matl
Tue 12 Feb 2013 9:50PM
Maybe we could also distinguish "public" into:
- public for the whole internet
and
- public for the users pod
goob
Tue 12 Feb 2013 11:48PM
Have put my reasons in a message. I'm not keen on this, but not vehemently against it, with the right safeguards. However I think there are better ways of approaching the problem.
tortoiseWed 13 Feb 2013 1:17AM
Prefer "limited" as default. However, if the user could set one's own defaults in the preferences panel settings, then everyone could be made happy.
For newbies, I think it's important to default to private until they get the hang of it.
Jason RobinsonWed 13 Feb 2013 7:52AM
I don't think it should be default but maybe we could add a setting to user profile to allow user to choose which one is default.
For sure it shouldn't be default for new users.
FlaburganWed 13 Feb 2013 8:54AM
The default option has to be private.
We deal with different issue there. About the newcomer who post his first message in private, there is already a sentence encouraging him to post in public, isn't it ?
L3MNcakesThu 14 Feb 2013 8:59PM
I agree that "Public by Default" is not really in the spirit of what Diaspora* is about.
Damien (ZBarg)Sun 17 Feb 2013 10:36AM
In terms of privacy, push people to think a second time before publishing a public post is a good thing. So I prefer "Limited by default". A "Public by default" option in Settings could be a good compromise for people who often publish public posts.
Tom ScottMon 18 Feb 2013 1:30PM
Instead of giving users a default which they will eventually not use, we should instruct them how to control their posts' visibility.
Tom ScottMon 18 Feb 2013 1:30PM
Instead of giving newcomers a default which they will eventually not use, we should instruct them how to control their posts' visibility.