I was on Damus before. Switching to Primal made me come back to the platform. I have hope for Nostr!
Saturday night launch. 🚀
Nostr's UX problem isn't a secret.
30-day retention trends to 0%. Daily active users stuck at ~10k. Posts disappear. Followers vanish when you switch apps. Every app feels like beta software.
I've spent 2+ years arguing that great UX wins. So I designed a meta-study, threw a few hundred dollars at Claude, and put together what the evidence indicates.
tl;dr: Ship working experiences, then add features.
6 critical patterns backed by 100+ citations:
‣ Onboarding, content discovery, core interactions
‣ Performance, progressive complexity, cross-client consistency
‣ Anti-patterns to avoid + validation checklists
I'm not a designer, but I know what good looks like. This is opinionated, evidence-based, and focused on retention.
What am I missing? What did I get wrong?
Send PRs this way: https://github.com/shawnyeager/nostr-ux-research
cc: nostr:nprofile1qyxhwumn8ghj7mn0wvhxcmmvqyg8wumn8ghj7mn0wd68ytnvv9hxgqpqr0rs5q2gk0e3dk3nlc7gnu378ec6cnlenqp8a3cjhyzu6f8k5sgsy67l5w nostr:nprofile1qy8hwumn8ghj7mn09eehgu3wvdeqzrthwden5te0dehhxtnvdakqqgqh2wxu9f38d8gfgsl33smuhc6cl26mh7vpzu6592nutlchrmthcsdtdqz4 nostr:nprofile1qydhwumn8ghj7cmgwfhku6trd3jjuer5dahx7m3wvdhk6tcpr9mhxue69uhkcctwvuh8yetvv9uhxtnvv9hxgtmfwsqzq77777lz9hvwt86xqrsyf2jn588ewk5aclf8mavr80rhmduy5kq92xkt0h
Discussion
Why? What made the difference?
I just found it easier to understand. Easier to find good people to follow through the different “trending” home feeds etc. These features might be available on Damus. In that case I didn’t find them.
I just think Primal has a more polished user experience. 🤷♂️