This post is about two things - mainly, to suggest where Peakd can be improved.
Use a simpler landing page that highlights PICTURES, curated by administrators of the site specifically to highlight the best content VISUALLY. If the content doesn't have a great thumbnail, it shouldn't be on the stage.
I believe c/photography lovers has some excellent imagery that can convey what Peakd is about. Talent! Creativity! Reviews of favorite shows, books, blockchain games! A lot can be gleaned from Flickr's UI redesigns in the past (a legacy web platfrom) and Twitter.
This landing page should be the go-to, the center stage and should give access to the other pages easily but at the same time not be overly cluttered. This requires UI design work that's very thoughtful. Several iterations need to be tested with the audience so a vote mechanism might be useful. A pair of communities in this space have successfully presented their best content, so there's something to learn from them for Peakd's 'landing'.
Why is this improvement important?
I found that I was browsing individual posts in my feed in a vertical fashion but there was no central place to rest my eyes on. To my left, there's a list of communities, roughly organized without any orienting imagery, icons or other 'hooks' to draw me to explore. Peakd, as the name suggests visually, is about the 'uppermost' quality - so those best qualities, visual content and written content should be highlighted.
Some other suggestions:
Use statistics to drive content development: The interface for posting a new blog post could gently suggest "Users who add an original image have 66% higher engagement" and other tips for QUALITY content.
Encourage a community around "blog development" that is highly promoted in Peakd , showing how to structure posts with a beginning, middle and end.
Promote good blogging practices and share bone-and-marrow type of content that strives to increase quality publishing on Peakd from the moment they sign in.
Side comment - The day/night mode setting should also be more accessible in the interface. Why is it hidden in settings when time of day when people visit Peakd varies?
Side comment 2 - Line breaks appear to be ignored in the editor which creates visually cluttered posts. The user is not to be blamed for this, when the editor appears to be WYSIWYG. Garbage editor = garbage presentation.
This is an obstacle to the main action users should be encouraged to do - not discouraged.
Posting that is restricted because you do not have enough power or you cannot comment is effectively a censor. There must be a solution to this real problem. You can post on Twitter with ease, but on Peakd you can't because you need more power or something.
--I'm stating this simply, without understanding the blockchain, because that's exactly the mindset you should assume for the onboarding audience: they don't get it, don't understand it, but they want to be able to post, like, comment.
If they can't, they leave frustrated.
If this barrier remains, it stifles participation and eventually does lead people to forgo commenting, posting, interacting on Peakd because, well, they can't afford it.
I'm gonna tie this post off with this -- the Peakd community has lots of talents you shouldn't have to dig for to find. When these users are raised up and encouraged, their continued participation in the Peakd ecosystem will elevate the platform further. Tweaks in the UI are needed, barriers must be removed and quality publishing will flourish here.
