Mastodon Discovery Week 2026

Mastodon 5.0 is on the horizon, and with it we plan to introduce major improvements to the UI.

Since 5.0 will lay the foundation for what's to come, we want a clearer picture of the community's biggest asks for 5.1, 5.2, and beyond.

This is where you come in. Join Mastodon's Head of Design for Discovery Week, a jam-packed 5 day sprint inviting community stakeholders from within and beyond Mastodon to weigh in on the future of the product.

Two Ways to Participate

1. Participate async, on your own time. Grab an All Week Async Ticket to receive user experience questions via email from the Mastodon Design team, once a day during Discovery Week.

2. Join us for one of the live roundtable discussions. Space is limited, so please complete this interest form if you'd like to participate. Full details about each day can be found here.

FAQs

Will my ideas from Discovery Week be part of the next major release?

It depends! Mastodon 5.0 will focus mainly on UI and navigational improvements. We want to make sure these foundational changes are designed in a way that lead us closer to the longer-term, more ambitious updates that our community wants to see.

Can I be compensated for my participation?

Unfortunately, no. We appreciate anyone who volunteers their time to support Mastodon and the Fediverse! We realize that a lack of compensation may make participation inaccessible to some people and therefore adds a limitation to our research. We hope to expand our UX research budget in the future.

Mastodon Inc., a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organisation, would be happy to optionally confirm your participation in the live roundtable as an in-kind donation from you or your employer. Please note that we can not give any guarantees for the tax deductibility for you or your employer.

I’ve never used Mastodon. What is it, exactly?

Mastodon is a social network built for microblogging (short-form status updates) and conversation across broad communities.

Mastodon is decentralised, which means that instead of one company owning it, it runs on multiple servers operated by people around the world. You can choose which server you join, and you can still interact with people on other servers. Decentralization helps protect people by distributing power, data, and decision-making. It also comes with some unique challenges and technical complexity, which have sometimes created a frustrating user experience.

If you’re familiar with other microblogging apps like Threads, X, and Bluesky, you probably already have a wealth of knowledge that could help our team to understand how to improve Mastodon’s user experience.

I'm not a good fit for the roundtable, but I know someone who is. Can I nominate them?

Absolutely! Send an email to [email protected] with the subject line "Discovery Week 2026," and CC the person you'd like to nominate. In the body of the email, let us know which day you think they'd be a valuable voice for and why. Since they'll be CC'd, they'll know right away that they've been recommended.