3 Things Medium MUST Change

Medium, hear our cries, and add these features!

I’ve been on Medium for over a month now.

And I absolutely LOVE this platform.

When I initially joined, I did not anticipate meeting so many amazing, kind, authentic, and like-minded writers.

A big shout out to everyone in my ‘Read for Read’ club. Each and every one of you has made my experience on Medium all the more worth it.

Your engagement, thoughtful comments, feedback, and everything else in between has me feeling forever grateful.

And I have Medium to thank for this. Without this platform, I wouldn’t have been able to share my writing and engage with all of you. So thank you, Medium.

HOWEVER, while I am incredibly grateful for what Medium has to offer, there are some aspects of Medium’s features that have come to my attention.

Features that I believe need changing.

What Needs To Be Changed?

1. Let us draft, edit and publish on Medium’s app!

When I installed the app, embarrassingly… I spent quite some time figuring out how to write a draft.

When this failed, I drafted and posted my very first writing piece on my laptop. After I shut off my laptop, I then tried to edit my writing on my phone, using Medium’s app…

I tend to re-read my posted article for the day on the night of — in bed. Don’t ask why. It’s a habit.

…To no success, of course. After some research, I realized that Medium once offered this feature on the app in the past. However, they only recently removed our ability to draft, edit and post on the app.

Is there some sort of petition we could sign? I’m serious, haha.

There have been countless times where I’ve re-read my writing while on my phone in bed and noticed an error or a specific word or phrase I wanted to edit.

The last thing I want to do is hop out of bed, turn on my laptop and edit my writing. And then shut off my laptop a mere minute later once done. Maybe I’m just lazy?

Further, there have been moments where I’ve experienced a burst of motivation to write a post, especially when I’m out and about — moments where I have not had immediate access to a laptop.

This is limiting.

But if Medium would just bring back the edit/draft/publish feature on the app, I’m sure it would make a lot of users happy.

Agreed? Or does this not make much of a difference to you?

2. Introduce a “Follow BACK” button

I know. I’m being quite picky now. But I’m sure this is a simple adjustment Medium could make?

Similar to apps such as Instagram, when you click on a user’s profile… there is a button on the top that states “Follow”. Therefore, giving you the option to follow said user (identical to Medium).

However, on Instagram, if the user is already following your profile, the “Follow” option on their page will read “Follow back”.

There are days on Medium when my notifications are flooded. This can make it easy to miss when someone has followed me.

As such, if I come across their profile in a few days, for instance, instead of seeing a ‘Follow’ option, it would be nice to see ‘Follow back’.

This would, therefore, clearly indicate to me that this writer is already following me. And most likely, if I enjoy their writing… I would feel even more inclined to follow them too!

Has this ever crossed anyone’s mind?

3. Introduce a ‘Most Recent’ comments drop-down menu on the app

On a laptop, when viewing the comments section of an article, there is an arrow you can click that allows you to view comments from “Most Relevant” to “Most Recent.”

On Medium’s app, however, this is not an option!

Thus, when viewing my most recent comments, I have to scroll through all of the previous comments until I can view the article’s most recently published comments.

This is incredibly annoying!

Especially if I have to scroll through 70+ comments on multiple articles.

I’m assuming this applies to everyone else’s phone too, when using the app?

Speaking of comments, there is one more additional feature I would like Medium to add. I will keep this under the above subheading.

On Medium’s app, if I view my notifications list and notice that a user has responded to one of my comments…

…after clicking this notification to view their response, IT NEVER TAKES ME TO THEIR RESPONSE.

Instead, it takes me to the beginning of the comments thread, and I have to scroll through the comments and find where their response is!

Again, this can take quite some time especially if there are a lot of comments to sift through.

Medium, please kindly do something about this.

Overall, I really do love Medium as a whole. The app is OK. But there are many features that could be improved or added, as explained above.

My question to you is, what would YOU change about Medium?

Or what would YOU like to see added?

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