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The Matrix Trashfire

blog.koehntopp.info

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41–50 of 217 posts

Re: The Matrix Trashfire

#41

Post by prmoustache »

vdaea wrote: post #27

Developers 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 fa…

> Why did Discord win? Oh, it must be dark patterns, regulatory capture, moat, etc. It can't possibly be because the UI makes sense!

I don't know but the Discord UI doesn't makes much sense to me, this is a huge mess.

Signing up might be better though with the caveat that I never had any problem signing up with Element (not Element X for which I have 0 experience).

Re: The Matrix Trashfire

#42

Post by bowsamic »

crimsoneer wrote: post #37
IanCal wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But if he'd just gone to the Element website and clicked "get started", it would have just worked. No it wouldn't. element.io -> get started gives this: > Get started. > Setup a self-hosted or cloud deployment, with powerful enterprise capabilities. edit - expanding. The element site is entirely about getting something for your business. It has a pricing page that tells me it'll be free for up to 200 users but I ha…

I mean, it's a commercial offering first. But "want to download the free app?" is right underneath it.

You suggested it based on your assumption that the UX would be sane but now after being told that it isn't you are backtracking. As it stands, your original comment is now objectively wrong, because you made exactly the kinds of assumptions the blog post author was making: that the UX would be reasonable at each step.

Re: The Matrix Trashfire

#43

Post by master-lincoln »

haltcatchfire wrote: post #16

We used Matrix for a couple of years at my company, but got kicked out from their managed hosting due to the new requirement of 50+ seats. The years we've been using it has been more of tolerating its flaws than a pleasant user experience. We migrated to Slack and was blown away of how It Just Works.

Who is "they"? Afaik the matrix organization doesn't offer hosted servers

Re: The Matrix Trashfire

#44

Post by maelito »

I'm talking daily with friends on Element. Most of them don't work in tech, but are quite comfortable with computers.

It's ok. Most bugs concern threads. But it's one of the only chat apps that enable threads, so I'm ok with that, threads are absolutely needed in my opinion. Signal conversations can become such a mess because of that.

ElementX lacks threads, but apart from that is refreshing. Looks more like a chat app than an enterprise messaging app.

Still your article is very important. The UX should be improved.

Re: The Matrix Trashfire

#46

Post by onli »

gtirloni wrote: post #21

These user reports are invaluable. They contain so much information that us devs miss because we're so used to working with our software.

Note though that this is not a regular user, but an old school blogger with deep database experience and afaik programming skills, at the very least someone highly technical (and known in Germany). He is just able to put his user hat on -> regular devs can do that too.

Re: The Matrix Trashfire

#47

Post by master-lincoln »

vdaea wrote: post #27

Developers 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 fa…

Nowadays companies win because of better marketing and then network effect. The quality of the product does normally not play a big role for capturing a market

Re: The Matrix Trashfire

#48

Post by bowsamic »

Attrecomet wrote: post #40
master-lincoln wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

agree, the author mainly complained about UX issues in the client, but then only tried one client it seems. Article should have been titled "The Element Trashfire" > my recommendation is to avoid Matrix for at least two years which seems arbitrary. Why wait 2 years and not one or just a couple months? The french administration is already using it now https://www.tchap.gouv.fr/ In federated protocols it's always harde…

The author tried the exactly one client that was available from element in the app store. Hard to fault him for that.

The thing is that people will defend this as a feature of this kind of system, rather than a problem

Re: The Matrix Trashfire

#50

Post by hiq »

maelito wrote: post #44

I'm talking daily with friends on Element. Most of them don't work in tech, but are quite comfortable with computers. It's ok. Most bugs concern threads. But it's one of the only chat apps that enable threads, so I'm ok with that, threads are absolutely needed in my opinion. Signal conversations can become such a mess because of that. ElementX lacks threads, but apart from that is refreshing. Looks more like a chat a…

> Signal conversations can become such a mess because of that.

The workaround is to create new groups, even if that's with the same set of people. I even have groups with just another person and myself, e.g. for specific projects. In my experience that works well enough, also because if something is longer-lived, I'll put it in a shared doc instead.

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