A Series About My Experiences On Steemit, What They Do Better And What Minds.com Can Lern From That (II)
After the huge success of yesterdays list, I will now continue and present you a couple of more aspects that are different between Steemit and Minds. They are meant as suggestions to improve Minds and perhaps, the developers around Bill @ottman find one or the other useful enough to implement it here on the site.
1./2. Previews of the title image+ the image itself
On Steemit, there was no title image. The rule was much more that the first image - no matter what that may be - becomes the preview picture to the article. The text itself did not have a title image. And why? Because it's not necessary and I do find this solution very convenient and intuitive. It also takes away a lot of work if you have images in your text for a certain passage and don't want to have to look for an extra one in the title. That may not be the case too often, but it shortcuts the creation process of the article at least with less clicking. And since you can look at the small preview image or at the big version in the text, there is no need for this title image from a viewers perspective as well. Steemit did that very well.
On Minds though, you don't just have to - well granted, you don't have to, but it makes a text more visible and you always add an image - add the image in the title as an extra task. In case you forgot it, you can edit the published article and add one later, but as I made the experience with one of my last articles, the preview doesn't change and your content stands there alone without picture unseen in an ocean of attention-craving pictures. That could improve.
(I just saw, also title text updates don't get updated!)
Another aspect in that respect would be to stop with the auto-deforming and zomming in of the title image. That is unnerving, because sometimes important parts of the title image are not in the picture. Then you modify the picture to make it fit the destortion mode of the title photo, but then you have the problem that the modified image doesn't look good anymore in the preview. This issue may be a minor one - and theoretically, it looks good and is cool - but it's completely useles and distracts from the main issue of publishing content and combining it with relevant imagery.
The best way to go is as I think to get rid of the title image and just taking the first one in the text is the most simple solution of them all. Users will quickly get that and adapt to the new normal of title imagery.
3. An option for small preview images and larger characters in the feed
Currently, the Minds feed is full of big images and tiny characters for the text. On Steemit, you have two options to display your content. One is like on Minds - big images, the title and two sentences of the text - and the other one is tiny preview images with the title and two sentences. I really like the latter, because images are often missleading and confusing because of the attention aspect. The text on the other hand is way too small on Minds. Even if you increase the zoom of the browser, the problem doesn't go away, because it also increases the images. As result, you see even less content to comb through at once.
With a second display option for the feed, you could easily load 10-15 posts at once and not like five as it is right now. I'm sure, the efficiency for using the site would grow a lot and with that the maximum possible interaction frequency would increase the same way.
4. To Enter Or Not To Enter?
On Steemit, entering in a text simply got you to the next line. On Minds on the other hand, it usually sends a post (no matter if article or comment) and only sometimes it adds a new line - and I'm not sure when it does what. Since this place has a strong bias towards writing, I would suggest to exclusively set the enter key for a new line and instead increase the size of the "send" button so you can't miss it with your cursor/finger.
As petty as this may sound, I find this the most important suggestion of todays list.
5. Boosted content in the feed vanishes after refreshing the page
This is no Steemit related issue and I am also not sure if it was a bug or a part of the system. As I understand it, Minds also puts content into your feed of users you don't know, but who paid for their post to be boosted to other users feed. I had such a post in my feed and actually intended to react to it, but then I refreshed the page first and it was gone again. Is that normal?
I mean, that would take away a lot of the incentive to purchase yourself space in somebody elses feed. It should be normal that this content stays there, unless the targeted user mutes this user or the specific content. In my case, I even found it interesting enough to give a response, but if you let it go away, there is no chance to increase the networking density via the boosting option.
So, in case this hasn't been a bug or a Fata Morgana, you should leave boosted content permanently in the feeds. After all, you should get what you've paid for.
In short, these were the suggestions of today:
1. Updating the preview image + title text of articles when they get changed.
2. Getting rid of the title image.
3. Add a second option for displaying the feed.
4. Enter only for new lines in a text plus a bigger "send" button.
5. Leave boosted content in the target feeds permanently.
More to come tomorrow.