NEW FEATURE REQUEST
We Need a Random Button on Our Medium Profiles
This isn’t a random article about Medium.
I’m lazy.
But I’m also curious.
When I discover a new writer, I click on their profile. And then I’m force-fed their latest articles.
It’s position bias at its worse:
“Position bias” describes the tendency of users to interact with items on top of a list with higher probability than with items at a lower position in the list, regardless of the items’ actual relevance.
I don’t want to read only the most recent articles. I don’t want to be even more biased than I already am.
Neither do I want to scroll down for two hours to find something older and different.
Pinned Articles
Pinned articles at the top, with a ‘best of’ or ‘table of contents’ are partial solutions. Here are two examples: mine, not mine. (Which do you like more? MINE or Hogan’s?)
Pinned articles give an overview of the writer’s content while offering a choice between different articles. And potentially between different genres if the writer isn’t too specialized in one niche.
On a side note, I’m always excited to discover a completely different genre by the same writer. For example, I found David B. Clear through his comics and then realized he was also writing on a wide range of topics.
Joy!
The problem with pinned articles
It’s a selection made by the writer, usually based on readers’ choices — the pinned article often lists the top articles — or the writer’s subjective choice.
Why not? It’s interesting to read the popular stuff. But I would like to discover the ‘real’ stuff.
I want to discover the hidden gems!
The solution: the random button
That’s why we need a random button on Medium writers’ profiles. Clicking on this button would randomly bring one of a writer’s articles to the top of the list.
And if I don’t like what I see, I can click again and bring another one!
Actually, we need it everywhere on Medium
As much as I enjoy the recommendations from the algorithm, I would love to go to Medium’s homepage and click on a random button.
What a trip it would be!
Imagine the potential discoveries we could make…
Recap — a comic strip
This comic strip is in homage to David’s — often hilarious — comics and XKCD, one of the best comic providers of the internet.
Final words
Choose (randomly) one of your articles and drop a link in the comment section. That’s the only ‘random button’ I could imagine for now.
Ps: Now you know why J.J. Pryor doesn’t have a pinned article. He’s waiting for the random button!
Update — I sent a request to Medium and they added this to their user suggestion list. Consider sending them a message to push this new feature request up! :D
For more new features request, check out this one: We Need Gamification Features for the Readers!
