These user reports are invaluable. They contain so much information that us devs miss because we're so used to working with our software.
The Matrix Trashfire
21–30 of 217 posts
Re: The Matrix Trashfire
#22I gotta say, he nails it. I so wanted to love Matrix. I tried it for a year and it just had too many sharp edges.
I was on IRC when ircII and BitchX were common clients along with huge scripts on both for "irc wars" and shit. I can deal with jank.
But the Matrix UI/UX still grates me on how bad it is. Just stop pretending, copy what Discord does and be done with it.
Re: The Matrix Trashfire
#23I mean, this is quite silly. Matrix is the open-source network infrastructure, Element is the client. Of course if you go to the Matrix web-page, it's not particularly user-friendly - if you expect to just use the thing, you should be going to Element. The ActivityPub page won't exactly help you sign up to Mastodon either. There are plenty of problems with Element and Matrix (I say that as someone who has been trying…
> his comes off as the author just not doing basic reading. Perhaps a technology will not have success if its users need to do basic reading.
A chat platform for the illiterates might not be the best business proposition
Jokes aside, I don't think matrix/element, at this stage, are trying to overthrow telegram or whatsapp.
It seems their main approach is somewhat aimed at the people who use(d) IRC on the general audience side and institutional clients who they work with to create ad hoc solutions for employees, in which case which client to download is slightly less problematic since it's going to be a custom one anyway
Re: The Matrix Trashfire
#24We also tried to use it, but frequently, messages will fail to decrypt with no option to retry. Threads is a mess, where messages will show as unread, but you can't actually see what message was unread. Matrix/Element is so close to a great alternative to Slack, but in it's current state it's totally unusable.
> We also tried to use it, but frequently, messages will fail to decrypt with no option to retry.
This is a years-old issue with Element, which never happened to me with other sending clients such as FluffyChat. It's unbelievable that it's unfixed given it's a dealbreaker as it results in permanently unreadable messages on your end (the "waiting" in "waiting for this message" is a lie). And since this needs to be fixed on the sending side, you NEED to use another messenger to fix the conversation (if at all, as this requires reading extremely long issues on github with buried suggestions many won't do).
After getting it a few times most users would just dump Element and blame matrix as a failure to never touch it again. The excuse "we're working on this on the next client iteration" is actually ensuring a growing list of users will hit this (as it's bound to happen) and avoid matrix in the future.
UI/onboarding issues are minor compared to the fact that the conversation can be randomly broken.
Re: The Matrix Trashfire
#25Earlier quoted context omitted.
> if you expect to just use the thing, you should be going to Element. Element sent them to matrix.org
I'll happily admit the Element/Element X migration they're currently on is silly and unhelpful, but the point being if they'd just gone to the Element home page, or download the actual Element app instead of the X one, it would have perfectly happily registered them to Matrix.org by default and everything would have been just fine.
> or download the actual Element app instead of the X one
MacOS app store only had element X, and also how is a user supposed to know to use the old one? Matrix.org tells me element X supports more stuff! The author says it's in beta but I can't see any indication that clearly tells me that and I'm looking for it.
> just gone to the Element home page
The app doesn't take you there.
But OK let's do that.
element.io
There's a big getting started button.
Now there's a form asking for my work email address and phone number and what challenges I'm looking to overcome.
> Setup a self-hosted or cloud deployment, with powerful enterprise capabilities.
To get started I need to not go to "get started" I need to go to sign in, which I can't do, then register.
Re: The Matrix Trashfire
#26I tried to follow along with the author by going to the same pages and seeing the difference between what he should have done and what he actually did, and it convinced me that there's no way he was doing this in good faith (unless something has changed). I still can't figure out how he managed to get to some of the pages he described, when the thing that he said he wanted was clearly right on the page he said he was…
The fact that the official Matrix Mastodon account as well as the "Matrix Director of Program Development" agree with his assessment with the Mastodon account agreeing that it is a "trashfire" makes me sceptical of your suggestion that he was manufacturing these issues.
I mean, Element and Matrix are 2 separate entities, which is kind of the key problem with all these efforts - there have been plenty of posts about how hard it was to join a Mastodon instance, or creating 2 accounts etc.
That said, the Element/Element X migration is a mess. But if he'd just gone to the Element website and clicked "get started", it would have just worked.
Re: The Matrix Trashfire
#27Developers could also do these processes. And they probably do, often. But they usually have their heads so far up their asses that they don't see how inscrutable this onboarding process is even for very technical users.
It's like when you use one of those Linux phones and your reaction all along is "ew". Do developers not notice how bad this is? No, they don't. Some of them haven't used a good UI ever. They can't fathom it could be better. They really think they are doing a good job.
Why did Discord win? Oh, it must be dark patterns, regulatory capture, moat, etc. It can't possibly be because the UI makes sense!
Re: The Matrix Trashfire
#28Can we please stop submitting click-baity titles?
Re: The Matrix Trashfire
#29While it's never fun to receive negative feedback, it'll only help to improve the product.
Still, I run Matrix servers since inception of the project (10 years now \o/), and for an experienced system administrator this is not something difficult to do.
If you think running a Matrix server is difficult, you are probably not the intended audience: running an IRC server, an email server, or some other server, is mostly similarly difficult.
Matrix is a communication protocol, and it is not intended to be touched by end-users. If your goal is to just communicate on the matrix network as an enduser, stay away from matrix. I haven't seen an email enduser who browsers to https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc5321.html, to figure out how to sign up for hotmail.....
Element on the other hand, IS intended to be userfriendly, and there is obviously a lot of room for improvement. But through the years I experienced that users who want to use Element to stay in touch with their loved once, have no problem with that.
Lastly I think comparing an open source project like Matrix/Element to Publicly traded corporations like Slack or Meta, is not fair. They operate with totally different business models. If you'd compare the quality of Matrix/Element to Slack in relation to annual budget, Slacks ROI would be depressing.
Re: The Matrix Trashfire
#30Ok, now do XMPP. Or Signal, but with the added requirement that you want to run your own server.
i.e. moving the goalpost fallacy.