Some time ago, I wrote a post about how difficult it can be to onboard new people to Hive. This is an experience that I hold close to my heart, because it was not an isolated incident. I had an experience where I was guiding a lady to create an account step by step through WhatsApp chat, and she had to give up the process due to how technical it felt and when it came to managing keys. This is something that I hardly forget, and she was not the first person that I have seen walk away due to this.
Today, I had the same experience again, but this time I knew it was time to tackle it head on. Rather than guide the person step by step through the entire account creation, I took it upon myself to create it for him and send him the keys and explain the next steps like logging in, changing password and getting a new set of keys if necessary. It sounded simple, and this time, I was sure it was going to work. But I was wrong.
It was frustrating from the very beginning of creating the account. It felt like all the popular front ends didn't work at all. The free account with Ecency never went through, Hive Onboard requires account creation keys, which I don't have and Inleo had issues on both options.
I ended up creating an account through Inleo by signing up with the email option, but when I was trying to claim the keys, it failed and that rendered the whole process incomplete. Then I tried the Keystore option, and I was able to create the account and retrieve the keys, but when I tried setting the five digit code, it was returning an error repeatedly. It felt like I was running around in circles.
The process which I thought would be easy became more complex than it was, and another strong reminder that Hive is still not beginner friendly. Even for me, who knows how the system works and has been on the platform for some years, it was difficult, imagine for someone entirely new. This is where the main challenge lies.
We often discuss onboarding new people, and we get carried away on marketing and advertisement, but in reality, the first impression does not only matter, it sets the stage for whether that user will stick around to truly benefit from Hive.
I am a Hive believer and I want more and more people joining the network. It is however, necessary for us to realize that beyond promotion, the core issue of a broken, or should I say over technical onboarding process needs attention. Anything that is good, will likely get ignored if people can't easily access Hive to see the good it offers.
And I think this is a matter frontends owners and Hive developers team should look at. It's really frustrating after you have shared how good the platform is to people, only to experience roadblock while trying to help them create an account to see for themselves if what you have said was true.