Writing habits are a tough nut to crack
I'm here writing my Long form publication on LeoFinance.
I have no idea why I use the word publication instead of using the normal post, or article term for my Hive and Leo content, I guess I want to sound fancy, I guess I'm a moron for thinking that using fancy terms gives me some sort of allure, but I like that word, I'm going to keep using it, deal with it, dear 3 readers.
Anyway, I am here writing my long form publication on LeoFinance. I used to write al my money-related publications through the old Leo User interface, and my non-money-related pieces from Ecency.
I was never a fan of Peakd, and as a matter of fact I was a hive.blog user for a long, long time, perhaps too long considering the other options for content writing on Hive.
So, LeoFinance for money related content, Ecency for non-money content. It worked fine, I liked my routine, I liked my habits.
New LeoFinance user interface
Then, the new user interface came around. It was glitchy, it wasn't user friendly. I, being part of the team, forced myself to use the platform for long form publications and find glitches, bugs and ways to improve the platform, but it was hard as hell, I was actually, literally, forcing myself to use it. I can't imagine how normal users felt when the UI launched. Well, I have the numbers, I don't need to imagine.
In March, we had 60 content creators and 23 content consumers on LeoFinance in the long form side of things. April wasn't much different. I get it, the User Experience was not ideal.
Along came some updates and we are now hovering around 400 long form users, and 350 content consumers, almost back to our previous numbers before Threads became a thing on LeoFinance. Before Threads, we were 500-600 Monthly Active Users for long form content, we are now 1,300 Monthly Active Users.
Threads and the new UI made LeoFinance almost 3x in userbase in a matter of months, sweet.
But writing habits are a tough nut to crack
The user interface is awesome, the user experience for publishing long form content on Leo is flawless - and there's a lot more to come soon - and yet, when I got a publication idea I opened my browser, and instead of going to LeoFinance to write it, I opened hive.blog.
I realized what just happened. I was in automatic mode, I didn't think, I just let my brain and my muscle memory do their thing and it struck me: Why am I not posting this from LeoFinance?
Because if you want to change a habit you have, you must do it actively and consciously.
I can't imagine how hard it must be for other users to get other frontends off their mind. I get it, I get that migrating from using another frontend into using LeoFinance for everything might be hard, but it's a challenge we were fully aware of when we decided to rebuild our user interface from the ground.
We knew we would face backlash. It was obvious that some users would refuse to try new things, it always happens. We were more than ready for this uphill road, but we were also certain than once adoption started happening, it would mean a snowball effect, which is already happening on LeoFinance.
Writing habits are a tough nut to crack, but LeoFinance owns a nutcracker factory, and we're giving them out for free to anyone who wants one.
This post turned into something very different than what I was going to write, but I still like the outcome. I also love the fact that this is my second post in two days straight. Am I going back to my golden days where I posted one, sometimes even two posts per day? I'd love to say I am, but odds are, I wont, we'll see.
Posted Using LeoFinance Alpha
I'll have to try the UI out. I want to use Leo more but I really don't have as much finance related content these days. I've been trying to put a conscious effort into using Hive in general, but man, time has been eaten up by everything else. Reading and commenting is about as much as I have time for.
Did you continue down your coding path man? If so, I'd love to hear that you've done some React lol. I have some questions.
Yeah I get that a lot, in fact I was pretty much the same a couple of years ago, thinking I had nothing to write on leo but then I realized that by starting small and simple I slowly started to learn more about crypto and finance and after that it just became another topic I could write about. Starting small is key, and the good part is that the Leo community doesn't gatekeep and we actually welcome new users, no matter their expertise or knowledge level about the topics at hand.
I haven't done any react man! I got stuck at simple JS due to lack of time and finding a couple of jobs, but once I have more time I will get back to it. Are you struggling with react maybe? haha
Posted Using LeoFinance Alpha
A little but I think it's a syntactical/conventions thing. React uses this weird hybrid of JS, CSS, and HTML called JSX. It's really cool actually. I'm just struggling to learn everything lol. I have a bunch of technologies I need to master in under a month.
I mostly use Ecency app on mobile to publish all long form content, and Ecency/decks in browser on mobile for Waving, Buzzing & Threading. Sometimes i use #DBuzz app to post.
i think leofinance.io interface is far from awesome, not really useable (on mobile), or on laptop (tried today, could not upload images or even image links).
Today i tried to force myself to use #leofinance front end, and did so in the end to make this post https://leofinance.io/posts/atma.love/tipping-hats
BUT i composed it in ecency then pasted to Leofinance then published.
i'm quite good at bug reports and improvement/feature suggestions, so i could detail the issues i have and helo the team improve the interface and thus no. of users
BUT i can only do so if team respond to my reports, not ignore them (or not see them as they are not monitoring the mentions i make when reporting in posts and comments on chain).
@dbuzz and @ecency are very good at responding to mentions, so i know they have at least been read and hopefully acted upon. Sometimes i need to remind, but not often.
Sat Nam
I will stick to peakd :)
We'll see about that soon :P
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New interface is hard and to me not user-friendly also. It kills time and some of other functions are hard to use, bugging, block and app-error problems need fixing. Dont know when it will be changed!
But, the addition of leo-threads opened up new space for Active users to participate and the increasing number would show growth of leofinance.
Writing is a habit, but watching some of the authors to write makes me think that it is just as necessary as food. Ha ha..
Once you get into the right mindset, content creation comes as easy as cooking (or eating), it's just a matter of time and gaining traction! Good luck in your Leo journey, if you need any help you can always @ me
Posted Using LeoFinance Alpha
Hey,thanks for such inspiration mate!
Thats a wonderful bit of suggestion to have this day. I am impressed to see that,for me each day that is bringing a positive learning, I am contented to be in such realm of experience!
Good luck to you too!
I had to default back to PeakD to use the 'pull-left' and 'center' page formatting . I know it doesn't change the words I write but like to scuplt my writing. Then again, then pictures don't show even when adapted them to internet friendly size. Wen will the 'Follow' tab work?
🥨
HTML coming soon! I get you, I used tables all the time and it frustrates me that Leo doesn't support it (yet), I'll let you know when it's up haha.
Posted Using LeoFinance Alpha
My Hive Journey has been with Peakd so what I often do is to sometimes write at Peakd and transfer to any other writing page. With Leofinance UI things are getting better for me lately. Just that I can't read new income posts despite that I keep refreshing my page.
I feel that, for me it is the same. The habit of writing in other frontends is still too engraved in my mind, so I have to actively fight it, but it's just a matter of days until I get used to this, and then it will all be smooth.
Posted Using LeoFinance Alpha
The new leofinance UI is definitely getting better. Anytime, I want to post finance related content, it is the frontend I visit and try to post it from there. Most times, everything works fine except images, they never seem to get uploaded. Ecency is the other frontend I frequent.
We are working very hard in making the user experience flawless! I'm glad to hear this, thanks for the feedback!
Posted Using LeoFinance Alpha
Today I was wondering if the interface is currently in better condition than the previous UI? Are we past that first milestone yet considering options and stability?
I am not able to answer the question myself because I did not use Leo at all before.
I think we are in a different state because this UI is much more robust than the old one. There are more bugs but that's because the infrastructure of this UI is much more complex. We are still far from perfect, but we'll get there sooner than later!
Posted Using LeoFinance Alpha
You know, transitioning from old software with it's own peculiar UI and UX to something new/novel is difficult. Sometimes it's more than muscle memory or being on autopilot, it's about the UX - the user experience.
It's easy to get carried away with the UI that we sometimes forget the UX, so as part of this project you just described and as someone pationate about its success, with a full heart, do you strongly believe that the UX is the most appealing and user friendly? If you can't answer with a resounding "yes" your muscle memory won't change.
Our brains are hardwired for convenience, we will always gravitate towards the most convenient thing to do, and if the new note taking interface is more convenient than the old, trust me, it wouldn't take a lot of time and the brain will reset itself.