Loomio
Thu 23 Jan 2014 10:12PM

Should diaspora* become mobile-first?

M maliktunga Public Seen by 68

Mobile-first design is definitely taking over the world. Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Instagram, Path, Snapchat, WhatsApp and many other social platforms are trying to conquer our small screens. But what about us? What about diaspora*?

If diaspora* doesn't focus on mobile, it might miss the boat in my opinion. Mobile is a strong opportunity for diaspora* to take off, especially in places where Mozilla wants to popularize Firefox OS.

Right now, it is pretty obvious that the mobile experience is an afterthought on diaspora*. From a personal experience, the design is honestly not yet ready on mobile. The buttons are too small for a thumb to reach them, the icons are blurry-pixelated on a retina display... With the progressive switch to Bootstrap, do you think the mobile form factor should become the top-priority for design and features?

G

goob Thu 23 Jan 2014 11:19PM

Maliktunga, the problem isn't lack of ideas or lack of will to improve Diaspora - the main problem the project faces is a lack of developers and designers. At the moment there is just a handful of developers and designers, all working in their spare time.

Making loads of proposals ain't going to get anything done faster. Everyone knows that the mobile site is incomplete - the problem is that at the moment there are two people working on it, when they can find some time among all the other things they have to do. The 'mobile experience' is not an 'afterthought' - it's just that there aren't enough people able to work on it.

Finding more developers is really the main - the only - priority at the moment. And the next priority is to sort out all the problems with infrastructure and architecture. Fine-tuning the glossiness of it will be more important when Diaspora is in the position of wanting to attract end users rather than wanting to attract developers. At the moment, the project is not in the position.

If you can help improve the mobile site - or anything else - please do jump in and offer to help. It will be much appreciated.

AA

Alberto Aru Thu 23 Jan 2014 11:33PM

Without an API, we can't have any Diaspora* app. Why Diaspora didn't use Pump.io API?

M

maliktunga Thu 23 Jan 2014 11:46PM

@goob Thank you for clarifying the situation. Unfortunately I am neither a developer nor a design, thus there is nothing I can really do except use diaspora*, file bugs and make suggestions...

SVB

Steffen van Bergerem Fri 24 Jan 2014 12:24AM

@albertoaru Did you read goob's comment? What part of 'lack of developers' don't you understand? It's nice to get feedback from the community and it's nice to get some feature requests but repeating those a thousand times won't help to implement it. There are already some discussions on Loomio dealing with an API, I will link two of those:
https://www.loomio.org/d/JOzarTqE/api-discussion
https://www.loomio.org/d/p31xUHWO/an-authentication-model-for-third-party-apps

AA

Alberto Aru Fri 24 Jan 2014 2:43AM

I didn't know why and I know there are lack of developers, I don't need anybody to tell me that. It just could be for another reason.

SVB

Steffen van Bergerem Fri 24 Jan 2014 3:12AM

@albertoaru Ok, sorry for being harsh.

AA

Alberto Aru Fri 24 Jan 2014 11:17AM

Don't worry, I know you did it with the best intention.

G

goob Fri 24 Jan 2014 11:38AM

What we really need is ideas about how to attract more developers...

G

goob Fri 24 Jan 2014 11:40AM

Oh, and someone has been working on an API... https://github.com/diaspora/diaspora/pull/4554

M

maliktunga Fri 24 Jan 2014 1:11PM

@goob I know it's getting off-topic, but does the Diaspora community use bounties to correct bugs and attract developers? Something like Bountysource could definitely help.

Load More