Oh, My Gear!
After carefully hiding tech developments with apparent stillness, Medium recently unleashed the ultimate writer’s tool.
Medium features for writers, readers, and editors seem stuck at years ago.
Let alone the MPP, which made most of us poorer than before, if possible. But intentions were good.
The drawer of our Medium dreams is permanently filled with stuff like a customizable profile, a manageable reading list, multilingualism, serious statistics, and much, much more.
But the everlasting holiday of the Oompa at Medium is just apparent, and yesterday they revealed on the Web app — with an elegant tip — the jewel meant to sedate discontent.
The Gear.
Now, just reflect on it a bit.
It may seem a useless change, but it hides a powerful improvement: editing now requires two clicks instead of one.
More calories burned. Any user interface expert knows that the number of clicks to accomplish a single operation should be maximized. Two is better than one. I would suggest five.
But there’s more.
On Medium, we are used to the classic three dots for the “contextual” menu, and our happy (or grumpy) face for the “general” menu. More or less.
The three dots are not a bad idea. A lot of us know that they may mean “menu” or “more”. And since our face is the stargate of the general menu, the dots are supposed to introduce the actions related to the current story.
On tablets and mobiles it’s a bit different, but that’s another story. We’ll talk about that when the many teams at Medium start speaking each other.
But now they introduced the gear. Why?
Oh. Maybe is that simple. A gear is a gear, and a menu is a menu.
Do you understand, now?
Hope so, because I designed and developed software for 35 years and I’ve not understood yet.
But the real power of the button is still there to see.
Just go to one of your members-only stories and try editing. The magic will show in all its greatness, like an aurora borealis.
Two menu items. The dots could never support that.
Now you know. There was a reason if you never saw the much-needed features of your dreams.
At Medium, they were busy designing the ultimate writer’s tool.
The Gear.
OMG has a new meaning, now.
My fellows, may the Gear be with you.
