Why this isn't soup.io clone UX-wise.
I'd like to say few things about why Loforo isn't a clone of soup.io.
Loforo seems to be closer to Tumblr than to soup.io actually.
This will be a rant about User eXperience.
Soup.io:
The very basis of the soup.io phenomenon is the continuity of focus.
You are always in the same space: On a timeline. Either /everyone or /friends or /fof or a particular user.
You scroll the timeline and no action except explicitely clicking on a permalink takes you away.
- Repost is a one-click operation - and was the main driver of the user engagement on soup.io - after you click the button, everything is done in the background.
It adds the post to your timeline. There is no editing stage. You can always edit posts in your timeline later, if you want. - React is an in-place operation, adding a reaction within a static popup panel, without going away to a different page.
- There is no "Like", as when you like something - you just repost it.
- There are tag and group systems
Meantime, on Tumblr:
- Reblog loads a popup for few seconds, where you need to click "save", you can add additional caption. After clicking "Reblog" it then closes, the timeline you're browsing is still underneath. Still, that is a click, waiting for the popup panel to load, then click to actually reblog. 2 clicks and few seconds for a repost, awful.
Alt+Clicking the reblog button, passess around the entire process, which then works exactly as the soup.io repost.
Thing is, you need two hands for that. What if you hold a slice of pizza? - Comment is also in-place but text only, located in a loaded popup panel, similar to soup.io react panel.
- Like is a one-click action, and adds stuff to a "liked" list, like a soup.io repost, but adds a post to a "liked" list, which is separate from "reblogged" and "posted" posts in the timeline of the user.
This creates a different experience, as when browsing a user, you have two lists: one has posts and reblogs, and then the other has likes. - There are tag and group systems
Loforo currently:
- Repost opens a new tab, where you need to click "Save Post" and then you end up in the list of posts, so you need to close the tab. So that is 2 clicks and a new tab to close, for every repost - an operation that is a one-click on soup.io
- Comment is in place, but text only as well.
- Likes - just counts likes on the post, there is no list of the posts you "liked" anywhere. There is also no list of people who liked a given post, so is this just a raw number then?
- No tag or group systems yet.
Really, to achieve anything close to what made soup.io unique, you would need to remove all the obstacles from the user experience. Opening a new tab, or loading a popup window that loads for few seconds is a major disruption in the feed scrolling process.
A repost needs to be one-click operation.
Yes, it would be nice to have tags and groups and whatnot, but truly, the most basic thing one does on a microblogging platform is reposting and untill this can be handled with a single click. For now, I'd rather be alt+clicking on Tumblr than closing a tab every repost.
-- zEver.soup.io / sEver.loforo.com
[ Reposted from sever ]
See original post for my response
Thanks! I commented on it as well.
But this raises the question whether it would make sense to have global comments, does it?
I mean, should the comments get reposted as well? I would like that.
And one more thing: I'd love to be able to navigate to two, maybe three different pages from a repost.
1. The blog of the person it was reposted from.
2. The blog of the person that originally posted it.
3. Maybe the actual post of the person it was reposted from. (However, I think this might be obsolete if comments were global)
Personally, I think so far Loforo is better than soup. So far everything works - I couldn't even finish typing in my user name before the site shifted my cursor to the password box. I was never on tumblr as I don't like things that make me have an account just to look at something. I think this site is faster, cleaner and just a functional as soup was for me. I think it's okay to not be a direct clone.
I think so far the folks here have been pretty responsive to the influx of users and are trying hard to make everyone happy. If you want to navigate multiple pages, just open them in new tabs...that's what I do. The only thing i am waiting for is an ignore user option similar to soup as there are things folks post that I really don't want to see in my feed.
Other than that I think the folks here are doing a fine job and I hope it doesn't have to get to the level of having to have ads, or a paywall.
Oops, sorry about the double post. One more thing, can you put a character counter here - I have gone over a couple times and had to split it up..
@meatsoup Some kind of way to add in new comments in to the user/everyone feed may be worth trying. We'll keep it in mind.
Re: reblogs, it'll get an overhaul and this is just the beginning but yes there will be a "post from .. via .." style message instead of the duplicate repost lines as it is now
@heywood Thanks for the support. We know there is a lot more work to be done but we plan to continue adding regular updates to get there.
Also, we do have an "ignore user" function, its the little circle icon next to the follow buttons.
Added comment character count to the todo now.