i'm posting this first post on October 19th 2026, on mastodon, the day before they changed the interface to the new version. the current version i'm using right now to post this seems fine, and i don't really have any problems with it. i haven't tried the new version yet because it's in the future for me. but if it's bad, this post will become a thread which i reply to daily, weekly, or whenever i remember. i will do this continually, forever, Until My Demands Are Met
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it seems like they worked really hard on the new design. but there are a lot of things wrong with it. many are small or medium sized problems (dark mode colors and fonts are worse with my astigmatism etc), but many of them are fundamental issues which make functionality worse for no real reason. i saw the blog post by the designer where they specifically mentioned some of these changes, and gave justifications for them, so they weren't accidental. this means they will probably never be undone
@jk this has just broken how I use the app on my iPad, which is mostly how I use it.
@jk yeah, agree. just off the top of my head I've found that the colour range is trash (area/element delineation is *bad* now), and wtf with shoving so much into the left column?
and whyyyyyyyy are we replaying 2018-redesign twitter, this isn't a fun game
i'm going to give it a day or two to see if i get used to the small problems before i start getting really specific about anything, but overall it seems like a big regression. it feels a lot like using one of the many iOS mastodon apps now, which themselves have got a lot worse over the years, to the point that i find them almost unusable and rarely use mastodon on my phone anymore. just bad choices, things floating on top rather than being separate areas, poor use of space, less density, etc
@jk about 50-75% of Mastodon users are in middle age; I would hope that any UI changes that make it worse for those with astigmatism and presbyopia will ultimately be reversed (I did see a poor choice of colours in an earlier UI update get quietly improved a few years back)
one of the big problems with design is that "this is functionally broken, so i can't use the website" is easy to argue for. but "this is ugly and strange in a hundred little ways, so i don't like using the website anymore" just sounds like a set of personal grievances, because you're not criticising the premise of the design, but its execution, quality, attention to detail. you're just saying the designer isn't very good at their job. it's hard to say that to someone, it sounds mean and horrible
one example. let's ignore the insane default background color for a minute. why is the line spacing so huge on the 'selected' post? for me at least, not only does it take up more space, but it's oddly harder to read. i bet a good designer has a LOT of reasons why they'd style text like this, and could argue convincingly for all of them. you would not win the argument. so you'll just be stuck with the new, improved text, that wastes space and is harder to read
tomorrow or sometime this week i'll look into whether it's possible to apply some kind of user styles. i haven't done anything like that for years, since websites these days are written using some frontend thing that obfuscates all the element class names and hierarchies, and i hope that's not the case here. but maybe it's worth trying because what i'm seeing right now is rough as hell and i'm not betting on any drastic improvements anytime soon
@jk hey can you use a client like Ivory? I haven’t used mastodon’s own app or website, um, ever. I’m interested in reasons if you can’t, too. (Not to argue against but to understand.)
@autumnwinds i have ivory on my phone. it had some annoying issues iirc, so i mostly use the iOS mastodon app, which also has annoying issues. pretty much all apps i ever use have some annoying issues now. i just looked at ivory and maybe they've made it better since i last used it. i can't use it on my PC though, can i? tapbots are mac people right? that's why it's well designed and very polished, and unavailable on my PC
@autumnwinds for the record, 1) i love typing on a desktop PC and doing things on a desktop PC, 2) i don't like using a smartphone at all, 3) i used a mac for ten years as my daily driver, but i don't use one anymore, and 4) i'd love to throw my phone into a lake one day and 5) i hate iOS and android, and i hate my phone, and want to throw it into a lake. maybe one day
@jk @autumnwinds The web app pinned to home screen on iOS works great, maybe better than any other iOS app for Mastodon.
@jk is there also a grandma locked in a bird cage, or are we not doing that anymore?
they fucked it