Firstly, it took me a fair bit to realise that the book icon at the top was actually the menu button, and not just a logo linking to the home page. It's a neat idea (having the service logo act as the menu), but it's not at all clear to users, and should probably be replaced with a simple logo link and hamburger button instead.
Secondly, forcing users to log in to view any content is not a good design pattern, and has been seen as a bad idea in the community management world for decades. Scrap it, let people view at least some content as a guest.
Stylistically it isn't too great either. It works on a functional level, but all in all, it just feels very... dated. Like, the site was made in 1995 type dated. That's probably because the colour scheme feels drab and uninteresting, the fonts all staid and the general structure of the pages is all so academic and formal looking. It reminded me of one of those 'guestbook' features Microsoft FrontPage used to have, and not in a good way.
So again, change that up a bit, since the vast majority of the population have design tastes that are a bit more up to date than Lyra's here.
Not sure the tour is a good idea either. Facebook, Twitter and others like them don't need one, and the way it's implemented here feels a bit overbearing more than anything else.
Do like how profiles let you add new fields yourself though, that seems quite useful (especially in an era where new social networks and their respective profile links keep popping up every day).
As for conversations, those just feel a bit awkward at the moment. I mean, are there any groups here? Any tags? Hashtags? Any way of categorising content at all? Cause at the moment, it seems like it's just a list of conversations about whatever random topic that you're somehow supposed to find and wander into. Not sure how user friendly that is myself.
Overall though, it's a mixed bag. There are some neat ideas here, and I admire you for creating your own social media site, but the design aesthetics and general setup just seem so dated it isn't a viable competitor to the likes of Facebook and Twitter for me.
Sorry.
- It's OK to have a small learning curve; we think users will be OK with the menu symbol.
- We've thought extensively about whether to show content to non-logged-in users. This isn't really Lyra's use case. You can see it as closer to email than social media. Our goal is not to categorise "content". The very term "content" makes us itch. We don't aim to provide searchable communities or hashtags, as these are easy avenues for harassment, abuse and targeting vulnerable communities.
- Most of Lyra's existing use cases look like this: start converstion (with existing contacts, or invite them otherwise). Have conversation, usually private, with contacts.
- The tour can be removed with a single click, it was actually a requested feature and has received positive feedback.
- The general design is constantly evolving and it will improve as we have access to more funding.
- We offer a growing number of customisable themes (left menu); the look and feel of a platform should be in the user's control. Style is very subjective; some like basic, some like glitz. If you have any suggestions for a theme you would like, we will be happy to set it up for you.
There's no need to apologise for good, constructive feedback!
We'd love to hear some specific feedback on what you think could be improved about our UI :)
We also think we're not doing too badly compared to Reddit and Hacker News!
One, please add a directory (feed?) of public conversations that can be viewed without logging in. I want to see how the platform is used by other people and whether that fits me - but if you ask me to create an account first, I'm going to bounce.
Two, here on HN you say the team is mostly cog sci and engg people, which sounds awesome and piques my curiosity about why you made this. But the web site itself doesn't mention that, or anything about the people behind it. Please add an 'about the team' page so that I can understand more about the people who are inviting me to use their platform.
Hope this helps!
We have been thinking carefully about whether to include a public conversation feed. Public communications are not Lyra's central use case, and as most conversations are private at the moment, such a feed would be quite sparse.
As a nonprofit which is not funded by advertising, it is not our main goal to support viewers without an account. There is no charge to sign up.
Thanks for your comments; we are very open to any more specific or detailed feedback on improving the platform.
I don't have any specific feedback about your platform (heck, I'm building my own social network at the moment), but I will say that your site is VERY text-heavy. I've seen your other comments about the common person not wanting to create a Mastodon instance and while I agree with you, the common person also doesn't want to wade through an essay just to find out what you're promoting.
Simple and Stripe are great examples of sites that have a LOT of text but it's designed in a way to make it not look tedious to peruse.
This page provides a concise summary: https://www.hellolyra.com/about?page=how-lyra-works
I wish you the best of luck.
Whatever land you're wrapped up in, I hope everything is awesome there, too.
Edit: Though I guess it could also be because a lot of alternative software and services are created by people with a 'hacker' or 'programmer' mindset, where very little attention is paid to the UX and everything is focused on the features/tech stack. They're the same people who seem to think IRC, email lists and newsgroups have decent UI.