Medium is Tumblr with a press card.
A what? A press card. Back in the olden days of “THE MEDIA”, reporters would wear cards that said press in the band of their hat. This helps to let the reporter into areas that are not generally open to the public and it is also alerts anyone around that anything they might be doing could be press worthy. It served a dual purpose.
The realization that Medium is Tumblr with a press card came to me while I was talking to my good friend Kate-Madonna Hindes. She even tweet the comment which helped remember it, or else I might have forgotten was an off the cuff, stream of conciousness reaction to question about what I thought about Medium.
Now, that is exactly what I said but more of contraction of it. Like Tumblr, Medium is very easy to pick up and use. It isn’t loaded down with heavy advertising or User Interface options. The User Experience of Medium is about as zero friction as you can get. I think it is an experience that other services should aspire to. To read about the difference between user interface and user experience, you should read this article here by Erik Flowers.
Any darn fool can make something complex; it takes a genius to make something simple — Albert Einestein
When I am using an application, I judge that application by how many clicks I need to make before I am doing THE THING THAT THE APPLICATION WAS MADE TO DO. Medium is 1 click. Tumblr is one click. The difference is that Tumblr makes you live in the chrome, whereass Medium pretends that it doesn’t exist. A blank slate clear of distractions ready for your input.
As opposed to this.
Then there is the important aspect of first impression. What looks better
http://www.medium.com/@yourname or http://yourname.tumblr.com
Which seems more sophisticated to you?
Visible Logic Inc, a branding agency sent out a survey to see how email domain affected the perceived professionalism of a contact. You can check it out here.
You know you have achieved perfection in design, not when you have nothing more to add, but when you have nothing more to take away — Antoine de Saint-Exupery
With a minimal interface and a sophisticated user experience, Medium has in fact proven to be a great medium for a lot of different styles of content. I plan on sticking around.
