Onboarding new users

Got some really valuable feedback last week that's shifting my priorities.

The problem: New users are missing the core feature. Multiple people checked out the site and didn't realize they could vote "Exciting" or "Concerning" on each story. They thought it was just another news aggregator.

This is a huge issue because the voting mechanism is literally the main differentiator. Without it, AIApplePie is just another RSS feed reader.

What I'm building:

→ First-time user onboarding flow that highlights the voting buttons
→ Tooltip/animation to draw attention to the Exciting/Concerning feature
→ Quick explainer on why sentiment voting matters (track what the community thinks, not just what's trending)
→ Maybe a sample vote during onboarding so users understand the mechanic immediately

The lesson: I assumed the buttons were obvious because I designed them. Classic builder blindness. Users scan quickly and bounce if they don't immediately "get it."

If your core feature isn't immediately obvious in the first 10 seconds, you've already lost them.

Will start working on this ASAP. Will share results.

Thanks all for the feedback so far!