Mastodon

Mastodon is a decentralized social media platform that prioritizes user privacy and smaller, community-centered moderation, offering an alternative to traditional social media. Mastodon approached our team to help them make federated social media more approachable to everyday users.

Together, we worked to refine their visual identity and improve user experience to help Mastodon grow without losing its core values. Lacking essential information for those unfamiliar with how decentralized social media differs from what they may already use, our team surfaced information from existing documentation and aligned terminology to reduce the friction new users feel on sign-up.

Because choosing an instance is central to the Mastodon experience, we designed tools that help people find communities aligned with their values. Simple, universal filters for interests, moderation approach, region, and language made discovery easier while preserving each instance’s individuality.

Our work also involved discovering a better way to surface existing communities to join. Because Mastodon instances are so unique, we focused on adding a few filters that apply to most instances, so users can browse for the community that best fits their needs.

Following the launch of the improved first experience and with a clear path into the ecosystem, Mastodon saw a 32% increase in new user sign-ups.