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The Problem

Save to list feature – Many many many times I’ve mistakenly clicked on “My library” instead.

My User Journey

I read a lot, and Medium is one of the apps I have been using regularly for years now. First, I read through the first two paragraphs and then skim through the content to figure out if its a generic article or if it says something specific that I’ll use.

When I skim through, If I find a blog/article that I like, I add it to my list. Generally, I read through every article at one given day, depending on my schedule and mood. I have created multiple lists that cater to a variety of my interests and they keep growing..

Company Values and Objectives

Through Heuristic evaluation of Medium’s About page and the way the product operates, we can see a few of the core values and Objectives

  • Increase the actual reads for a given blog relative to views
  • Build a network of readers and writers, i.e, increase human engagement via Claps and Comments
  • Retention of readers on the app – Increase time spent by readers on the app

Assuming that it is by design, that this feature is made slightly difficult to access. A possible reason for placement of the feature – add to list button, at the top app bar could be that – may be a lot of readers bookmark stuff and don’t really get back to reading it – yet. However, in this case, the placement of this feature in Homepage becomes redundant.

May be the reason for play button to be at the top bar is also because people don’t truly engage with the content while listening to it and may be treat it like an audiobook or a podcast running in the background while at work.

There is no Active Engagement (claps, shares or comments) – in both these cases.

The Solution

Reasoning

Medium does a fantastic job by hiding the Engagement features and the Bottom nav bar during scroll down – so as to not block the view of people reading the article, because all the attention is towards the bottom of the page. This shows how much care the designers at Medium have for readers. Kudos to you all. Love that. And, while trying to save the article, even though we scroll up a tiny bit, the attention is still at the bottom of the page, since we’re still trying to read, but just want to also save the article. So, having all features readers use to engage with the app (clap, comment, share, play, save) at the bottom right corner, on scroll up, makes it extremely accessible.

More Solutions

To increase readership and engagement, get surveys and/ analytics and run A/B tests to figure out the data on the following –

  1. How many readers tap on the add to list feature after reading the headline? IF excerpts were added, would that increase?
  2. How many readers actually listen to the blog/article instead of reading? Is that number large enough or if features like voice-activated clapping and speech-to-text commenting were added, would that number increase?
  3. How many people share blogs on whatsapp stories/instagram stories? Would optimizing the blog – may be adding “share as a story” feature which would create screenshots of a paragraph or blog and auto-share on the platforms (with the link back to medium, ofcourse) – How would this impact engagement?

To increase number of reads and engagement, another method would be gamification. Medium could introduce –

1. A badge system – based on an individual’s number of reads (not Views), you earn a badge of various levels ranging from let’s say “Enthusiast” , “Avid Reader” to “Bookworm” ,”Bibliophile”. Same thing, for writers as well.

2. A Point system – for all the “encouragers”, where people who engage more, post reading the blog, in terms of Comments & Claps get more points. Something like the Karma system on Reddit.