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@marc Add a "seen by XXX" list for todos ppl can opt out of
I think it could help the site feel more alive if signed-in people by default opted into being added to a "seen by" list for each todo. Have it look like the likes (a string of profile photos). People could opt out at the cost of not being able to see who had seen other TODOs.
TikTok does this for profile views, Instagram does this for Stories views.
TikTok does this for profile views, Instagram does this for Stories views.
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Interesting idea. I agree it can give a more community feel, knowing that your progress is seen by others.
On the other hand, I'm not sure how well it translates to a feed like WIP. With Instagram Stories and TikTok profile views they are concrete user actions, whereas when scrolling to a feed of many todo's, it doesn't necessarily mean you've viewed all these todo's.
The Like buttons serve a similar purpose. I wonder if there are ways to increase adoption of those?
Maybe only add someone if the TODO was within view of their screen for a certain duration, like two or three seconds, so if someone is quickly scrolling past it won't count.
With IG and FB stories people can just tap on the right edge of their screen to see the next one, so it doesn't necessarily indicate an intention to seek out a particular person's story. IMO it's very similar to what you have with the WIP feed.
This is really cool idea, plus consider different actions than liking only.
There is a risk of 'information overload creep'. An application that does more stuff and displays more information might be a good thing in some ways, but it compromises on the user's focus to work on a core goal, which is sharing progress on projects with other people who are doing the same.
reMarkable is a good example of this phenomena. Where the competitors get more and more features, their product is incredibly simple, and ends up appealing to its own category and being very successful because of it.
Yeah that's a fair point. I feel like the site is pretty simple at the moment though, and I feel like it's a big problem if people post something and feel like nobody is paying attention.
Not everything that is posted will find an audience.
Let's say you have two posts, one gets lots of likes, and the other one does not. They will probably get a similar amount of views, because the home feed is chronological. Making the view count sort of irrelevant.
If something is interesting enough, it tends to get likes anyway.
Yeah but for new people it can be very demotivating. When I ran an indoor football club I was always very diligent to make sure the new players had a great experience.
One thing Marc could do is just add an additional option to hide it from the UI while still providing your "seen" data to help others stay motivated.
If you scroll down a chronological feed, the view count will be the same for all posts you scroll past.
The only scenario where a view count would make a difference, is for algorithmic feeds. But the network is not large enough for that, and then you get into the realm of dark patterns, which is the reason behind social media addiction.
Encouraging people is a valid point, but I think a better way to solve that is through community culture. Such as creating a better experience for welcoming new members.
What you are talking about with your football club example is coaching.
You could divide motivation on WIP into two categories:
- Indirect: Likes and comments
- Direct: Mentorship
If someone needs more hands-on help with their startup, a new feature could be a mentorship page, where members can subscribe to calls with successful makers.
It's like playing football with friends or strangers, vs. hiring a coach.
But then you have to weigh that against what sort of community you want to make. If people then get more reluctant to help others without getting paid.
I think this disagreement is an empirical question that we won't be able to resolve through written debate. The only way to know who is correct would be to run an A/B experiment that measured the effect on people, especially new members. I'd be willing to bet it'll make people more likely to stick around, although I also suspect the effect will probably be minimal unless other things are done to encourage interaction with new members. For example, Facebook suggests that FB Group admins create "Welcome!" posts tagging new members and encouraging others to say Hi.
It was a very casual co-ed club that met once a week for an hour or two to play, there wasn't any coaching involved. But I saw firsthand how important it is for new people to have a great first experience to keep them coming back.