This is my very first article written on my phone directly inside of Medium’s new writing feature! Though the feature has existed before, it’s new to me. I was not active on Medium until March 2022. Of course with this development I now have to copy all of my half-finished articles from my Notes app (ah, the good ol’ notes app) into Medium so I can work on them on my computer too. Now I know all of you can peek into your apps (after you update them of course) and view and use this feature for yourself, so why am I writing about it?
User experience is everything
In my article about market research, I talk about the best ways to get information on your users. But by far the best way is to hear it from their mouths. Medium’s new CEO, Tony Stubblebine, has been vocal about making big changes for Medium and listening more to users. I even tested it by suggesting Medium bring back support for the WordPress plug-in, I got this email back about an hour later:
What we can learn from Medium
It’s one thing to just watch all of this awesome stuff happen to somebody else, but it’s a whole ‘nother to bring the ball into your court and start applying the same principles.
- Listening to users — let our people guide us to make the best products and services we can for them! Some suggestions I’ve personally taken: “can you include a screen with all the information so I can screenshot it?” “it was really hard to read the text on your last video, could you use a larger font?”
- Responding to any and all feedback — even though I know that 99% of Medium users probably have no idea that Medium even has a plug-in for WordPress, the support team still responded to me even if I am the lonely voice in the crowd. We can apply this by taking time to respond and keep in touch with any feedback givers (not to mention the rest of our peeps.)(You can get the Medium plug-in for WordPress on GitHub > add a new plugin in WP dashboard > upload a plugin > upload the .zip you downloaded from GitHub)
- Always getting better — Medium has set the example here by making their product easier to use for users and writers, not just one or the other. We can do the same by including features that may not be used by everybody, but somebody’s going to appreciate it and always improve our experience for all users.
Rip up and wrap up
Modeling successful people will help you be successful. The most important part is to include your own spin on it.
