
Has all that Clapping Broken the Branding?
And what about the UX improvements people have clamored for that would make a real difference?


Wednesday I thought, maybe it’s just an anomaly on my browser in the last couple hours but suddenly instead of the cute little green “M” logo, I got a boring white serif font “M” in a black square. On my profile page I got “Medium” centered at the top in the same boring black serif font. In other words, a change that amounted to nothing. No excitement. Just elementary art that wouldn’t pass branding 101.
So, WTF’sup, Medium?
If it were your intent to spend creative effort on improving the site through branding tweaks, that low hanging fruit you just grabbed smells rotten. I hope you’ll reach a little higher where the truly sweet rewards can solve more pressing UX issues that seem to have been on the books for months, if not years. Here are a few:
Wouldn’t it be awesome if the shift-return worked on mobile to take out the extra space between lines?
Or how about making it possible to UNPUBLISH and return to draft mode?
Or what if we could publish to a publication in mobile? I mean really, we’re seven years past the aughts, why should I have to fire up that big ol’ desktop box to get full functionality?
And a peeve of many…. why-oh-why can’t our stories be separated from the comments we post on other’s writing? I’ve written some of my best snark when stimulated by someone else’s moronic drivel. But come on! Those comments are not the same as stories. Give em their own tab or something. You’re the experts, figure it out.
I know there are other suggestions that have been posted to the Medium suggestion box but just those few morsels would tickle the UX taste buds of many a dear Medium user.
I’d wager the cost of my membership that real UX improvement would win more friends than changing from a stylized green M to a plain black one, or changing from single hearts to multiple claps.
These changes may well have a secret strategy, emphasis secret since that often seems to be your M.O., but damned if I know what it is. So, all I can offer from my common-man perch is, please, Dear Medium, put your immense resources and brain power to work. Anyone can catch fish in a barrel. Get to it and deliver on some of the hard stuff.
Please know this diatribe is offered with love and undying admiration. If I wasn’t willing to stick with you, I wouldn’t continue to throw those few nickels your way to keep that green ring around my profile pic.
