I just joined Steemit this week (yay!) and produced my first story, an introduce yourself post, yesterday. Being a newbie to the platform, but not social media, I thought I would have no problem picking up how to work within the Steemit system.
To my surprise I found it a little confusing and learning my way around the platform was a little like a game of hide ‘n seek. It did not have the normal flow of a social media channel and there were no buttons with appropriate labeling that would help someone find what they were looking for, such as following and commenting.
I’ve been blogging and participating on social media for many years and feel that there are a few things that would make Steemit a little more user friendly when one first joins. Here are a few of my ideas that I believe would help grow the platform.
- Add a FOLLOW button. It took me forever to find the small down arrow next to the name, that when clicked, would give one an opportunity to follow or mute. (Thanks @Nomads for your great stories - hope it's OK if I used your story for an example)
- Prior to following someone, it would be nice to be able to visit their feed, say by clicking on their profile pic, so that your follow is based on more than just the article you’ve just read.
- I would like to see either a comment box or a button with the word “COMMENT” clearly stated. The word “Reply” was a little confusing as I thought of it as a way to contact the writer and not as a general comment on the article.
All that being said, I finally figured out how to go about commenting and following as well as upvoting my favorite stories. Steemit is a wonderful platform that I can see growing in popularity as it becomes better known. I will certainly do my best to pass on information about the opportunities here.
I'd love to hear what you think would make the platform easier to use and more intuitive for new users?
Cheers! Have a fantastic day!
You can just click on anyones name and go to their profile page and see what they post before you decide to 'Follow" them, Then the Follow Button is up top on the right. Welcome to Steemit. It is a bit of a learning curve at first.
I didn't realize you had to click the down arrow first then their pic inside that to see their stream. I'm slowly learning my way around and getting more comfortable. Thanks for taking the time to provide some insight. Much appreciated.
I had the same issues when I started. Commonly done things should be obvious and correctly named. I agree!
Thank you for your post I couldn't agree with you more. I like it here but it still "feels" a bit "murky" and "fishy" to me, no pun intended. I will make the best of it by focusing on what I can do to make the experience more meaningful and sociable. I'd like to make steem and money but I want to go at my own pace and I don't want to be used as fish bait for the big fish but I understand the nature of gaining currency. I don't understand why people will make comments and watch my page without upvoting? I find that behavior rude. I understand glancing once and deciding you don't want to follow but voyeurism sucks and if people are looking at our page without supporting it's rude. If they don't want to support us, mute us or just don't follow or look. I recently added on people without carefully reading their posts and I'm afraid I will regret it. So yeah there is a huge learning curve for me yet. Anyway best wishes for all of us who are genuine and want to be part of generating revenue for everyone n the community who is authentic.
I understand it is a new platform and there will be changes as it gets better established. I also understand that people are looking for good content to upvote and hope to provide that as I go forward. I am sure that as you become more invested in this platform you will form a following. It just takes time. Good luck with your feed as well.
I'm not a quitter but I'm a bit of a nonconformist even though I work to "get along" and respect rules that are reasonable. I don't mind unconventional new monetary systems but "crazy making insane money systems" are unacceptable.
You might wish to contact Steemian @jerrybanfield, he seems to have 'clout' to push for changes/improvements to steemit.
Thanks for the suggestion @leeuw. I know that this is a beta version and just trying to provide some input to make it easier for everyone.