If Users Struggle to Install, IPFS Will Fail

Hello IPFS Folks,

I think what you guys are doing is great and looks cool on your website and in your video! I’m interested in this decentralized internet and applications idea. I think it will be great when people get their bearings on what it is and how to implement it.

That being said, I am not a coder. I struggle with Github. I have limited experience with the command line. I found it to be a struggle to install this app. In fact, I gave up.

If you want people to buy into what you’re selling, make it easy for them to fucking install your app! There is nothing more frustrating than going through multiple pages and file documents just to piece together a coherent way to install a god damned site or app.

I will be honest with you: your directions are shit. They are messy, disorganized, and confusing! I know you guys are probably super fucking smart. Smarter than I am. And, you’re probably thinking: “Who is the nannernuts?! It’s not that hard to install if you have a little command line savvy.” Wrong.

You want to blow people away with your decentralized applications? Don’t make them go to fucking a Git repository and struggle through some command line bullshit. Let me click a god damned button to download it, so I can watch it download, and then open up automatically with simple directions to let me actually use your distributed web.

You’ve got a beautiful website describing how awesome it is and all of the benefits of using it. So, I expected the quality of your website’s aesthetics to simply match being able to access it. It didn’t.

Not being able to install your distributed web sucked. I felt dumb and frustrated.

Maybe you’ve figured out how to make it simple because you simply haven’t figured out your vision on how to make a distributed web. And that might take precedence over some UX person being able to access your tool. Maybe fleshing out the core functionality and your requirements for this distributed web is more important. I don’t know.

But, if you don’t start considering how you want to engage so they will actually use this product, this will fail.

And I highly recommend you start incorporating some designers in this process or there will be a lot of bumps in the road for you.

I sincerely wish you the best of luck. We need this.

2 Likes

Hi. I’m a developer with 30 years experience, but I feel your pain. I totally agree that the website looks way better than the install experience goes. One question, were you trying to install on windows, Mac or Linux?

cheers:grinning: all the thoughts… after all… cheers