Summary

The author discusses desired features for Medium, including templates, filtered responses, and scheduling for publication submissions.

Abstract

The article titled "Medium, We Need to Talk" expresses the author's wish for Medium to introduce additional features to enhance the user experience for both readers and writers. The author, who writes daily and publishes frequently, suggests that the option to use writing templates would streamline the writing process and maintain consistency. Another proposed feature is the ability to filter responses to easily identify which ones have not been replied to, ensuring better engagement with the audience. Lastly, the author points out the limitation of the current scheduling feature, which does not support scheduling submissions to publications, and advocates for its extension to improve workflow efficiency.

Opinions

The author appreciates Medium's simplicity but believes there is room for improvement.
Writing templates are seen as a way to increase efficiency and consistency for frequent writers.
The author finds the current notification system for responses inadequate and suggests a filter to track unanswered responses.
There is a strong desire for the ability to schedule submissions to publications, as it is a common publishing method on Medium.
The author values the importance of reader interaction and ensuring that responses do not go unnoticed.
The author is open to feedback from other users on their proposed features and invites discussion on additional improvements for Medium.

Medium, We Need to Talk

There are some features you are missing

Are you satisfied?

I remember when one of my friends recommended Medium to me back in 2019. She swore by its user-centric design, which supposedly made it a pleasure to read stories. She is a UX designer, so of course I took her advice seriously.

I tried it out and it didn’t disappoint. It only took me a few weeks to go from only reading to publishing my first story.

I think we can all agree that what makes Medium so great is its simplicity, and although I enjoy that very much, sometimes I wish it had a bit more to offer.

So let me share with you some of the features that as a reader and writer I wish Medium would introduce to the site.

We are not going to talk about the app, because that would require an article of its own, for now, I’m only going to focus on the website.

1. Templates

In theory, I love the idea of clicking on the “✍️ Write” button and receiving a blank canvas on which I can paint whatever my heart desires.

But when you are someone who writes daily, and sometimes even publishes once or twice per day, starting from scratch every single time is not very practical.

Having the option to “Write from blank” or “Write from template” would be incredibly useful to help writers improve efficiency and enhance consistency in style. Something similar to what you can do with Google Slides:

Google Slide “From a template” feature. Image by Author.

For example, this is what I would use templates for:

Outlines: Start writing certain stories using an outline to help write more cohesive and compelling stories.
Footers: Avoid repetitive copying and pasting.

And I’m sure you can come up with more ideas.

2. Filtered Responses

Although I’m not, by any means, a big influencer on this platform, the fact that I publish a new story almost daily means I receive a substantial number of notifications. Many of which are responses to my stories.

Now, I’ve been on Medium for quite a while, but I realized only recently that under the notification section, we have two columns: one for all notifications and one for responses.

Medium “Responses” notifications. Image by Author.

This is great, but what would be even better is having the ability to see which responses I haven’t replied to yet.

This would be incredibly useful to help ensure we can adequately interact with our readers, and no voices go unheard.

3. Schedule Stories

I’m so thankful we can schedule when to publish stories, it makes life so much easier when you are away for prolonged periods, or if you like to time-block your writing.

But this future only works for self-published stories and not for one of the most popular ways of publishing stories, via publications. And as the CEO of Medium puts it himself:

Publications are a pillar of the Medium experience.

— Tony Stubblebine, CEO at Medium

It would be incredibly useful if we could schedule when we submit stories to publications since a lot of publications out there don’t really provide feedback, they simply publish or reject your stories.

Having worked with product teams at different tech companies, I know not all feature ideas are feasible or worth the cost, but this is something to consider anyway.

Let me know what you all think. Do any of my ideas resonate with you? Are there any crucial feature ideas I missed? Feel free to leave me a comment.

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