Medium Needs Footnotes
This publishing platform could use a few more formatting options.
Footnotes, for example. Sure, Medium has Notes. But Notes is a kludgy substitute for footnotes. And what’s with the 400-character limit and sans serif type? Serifs aid horizontal eye movement. This speeds up reading and helps both comprehension and retention. Which is why most newspapers and magazines use serif type. Designers who read know this. Designers who don’t, don’t.
So why do we need footnotes? Because sometimes you need to cite your sources. If Google Books had lived up to its promise, you could have linked to your sources instead of citing them. But in most instances you can’t.
Someday I’ll write The Lost Chapters of Google Books (you shoulda been there). In the meantime, superscript numerals linked to footnotes would be great. So would the option of smaller type for excerpts and other quoted material and footnotes.
Is that too much to ask?
