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sam henri gold

New change landing in Mastodon for Android soon! In user testing, people have expressed confusion over “why are all the handles so long?”

We're presenting handles on profile pages in a new style, with the username and server separated. Tapping the server will show you more details, along with a neat easter egg animation when you tap the rows.

@grishka did a phenomenal job on this animation 🙏

14 comments
Chee Aun 🤔

@samhenrigold @grishka 🤔 judging by the copy, I assume it won't be clickable on non-self profile pages?

Eugen

@cheeaun @samhenrigold @grishka You get slightly different copy on other people's profiles.

Chee Aun 🤔

@jeromechoo @samhenrigold @grishka I do have some thoughts, though now I'm more interested in the details and results of the UTs conducted.

Hazelnoot

@samhenrigold@hachyderm.io @grishka@mastodon.social very neat change! I am curious though - Is there any special handling for when multiple people are using the same handle within a single thread?

Riley Testut :fatpikachu:

@samhenrigold @grishka is “handle” the official user-facing term? I generally say “username” to refer to the whole thing when speaking colloquially (especially to non-techies), similar to Threads’ explanation

but I also get that be confusing when explaining the username + server part…

sam henri gold

@rileytestut We were thinking about it, and we needed a good way to refer to each part. It’s been pretty fragmented so far, so we decided “handle” has the least baggage and sounded more social than “address” (like email)

Riley Testut :fatpikachu:

@samhenrigold yeah that makes sense, handle isn’t the worst and I agree it’s better than address at least

Thomas

@samhenrigold I like the word "community" instead of "server" a bit better, especially for non-technical people. Have you thought about a less technical term? :) but I love the idea behind this change 👍

sam henri gold

@nethad We spearheaded change a few years ago! We dropped it since most people don’t use their server as a community, rather as an ISP. We also wanted to reserve the word “Community” for some future ideas we have.

We figured that, between “instance” and “server,” the latter is a little more recognizable to the average user.

Thomas

@samhenrigold I see, thanks for the explanation :)

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