Why Substack Is Engineering Led, and Not User Design Led.

Insight: On User Experiences.

Photo by Ben Kolde on Unsplash

Thanks, everyone, for your feedback, comments, and support! Updated new reader login process.

As a former Fortune 100 business and product technology leader and a bootstrapped founder (kindeeds.com), I find it interesting that a platform with millions of users has still so many glaring issues in its base features which ignore best practices and user-centered design principles governing software products including the fundamental areas of “user-centricity, consistency, hierarchy, context, user-control, accessibility, and usability.” An additional reference is here.

I understand the need for product roadmap prioritization, especially as a growth startup, but doing so at the expense of essential user experience workflows is an inexplicable choice.

Let me illustrate the different aspects with some common features and processes on the platform.

Complex Login Process and Home Page definitions.

1. Problem: A new user sees a mile-long settings page that is inexplicable to someone new to Substack. It appears Substack wants a user to ‘set’ everything before a user can read or write. Only a user determined to use the platform will persist. Isn’t the goal to attract novice readers too?

   Solution: Why not let users log in, choose ‘to read or write’, and drop them right onto the page of intent? Use nudges cleverly later to drive them to Explore or Notes and Settings.

2. Problem: A new writer may not have decided their options to go paid or unpaid, on what their intro emails to free, paid, and founding members should say. In any case, these settings have default text, so why task a new user again? User fatigue and fear of making a bad choice sets in.

   Solution: Let default settings rule until a user is more familiar with the platform and is willing to experiment by seeking answers.

3. Problem: There is no distinction made between casual readers, newbie writers, and professional writers. Everyone is treated the same! Aren’t readers the real customers of the platform for without readers, the writers are reading each others’ stacks?

   Solution: During the login process, enable a user to choose a role - reader, writer - and suggest topics, a minimum of 3, for them to choose, and then set up an intro page - not settings! - for a friendly hello. Right now, the welcome page is set up for writers, and reader access is via a dropdown menu bar (not intuitive) with a first choice of getting the App! There is a ‘Start Writing’ button but no ‘Start Reading’ button though the invite text says ‘writers and readers.’ So the message suggests both types of users have to ‘Create your Substack.’

Rather than adopt a platform easily and start to use it, users, especially readers, are stuck in a decision zone of administrative settings that are not critical unless a user is ready to publish and recruit subscribers. Even then, settings are changeable.

New Reader Logins: Complex and Unfriendly.

Let’s assume a reader does persist, or is a friend of the writer, here is the flow they follow to sign up as a reader.

Issues?

• Decision Overload: The first window is again a ‘decision’ window. There is no immediate login window without the ability to use other existing social media or Google logins that are now a standard part of signups online. If someone just came for a writer, they don’t even know what tagthe writer is under - is it culture, literature - where does ‘writing about writing’ even appear?

Note: If a user simply clicks outside the pop-up they can bypass the whole process and never sign up (lost user). But the impression of the popup menu (without an ‘X’ close option offered) is one of being forced to follow through.

• To select topics, unselect publications, provide a test name, and email ID, learn about the ‘Home’ tab (really, should they care?), and be nudged to send a ‘Note’ (why oh why?) before they are finally dropped to a page where they can simply ‘browse’ and ‘read’ in peace means a total of eleven steps are needed to complete a signup.

• Unwanted Default Subscriptions: The second information presented to the user is that by default, they are being subscribed to seven unknown publications based on a random selection of a category. The user has to decide, yet again, to find the unselect all, and if they hit ‘Continue’ which the platform is counting as default behavior, the user will be deluged by seven or more unwelcome emails in their Inbox. You are lucky if the user you invited speaks to you again. An unknown reader will resent the platform for the unwanted deluge of emails. This old-school in-your-face marketing approach is off-putting, especially when you are treated more subtly on other websites. Assume your potential customer is smart.

Note: Users are not shown the info that they will receive email from the seven publications until they are finally done and have no way to unselect, or opt-out. They are not informed how to unsubscribe - see above video.

• Missing Sign-up button on substack.com: Why is there no ‘Signup’ button on the home page instead of a ‘Sign in’? To get to the ‘Sign up’ button on the web needs 2 steps. But if you simply select ‘Discover’ from the home page, bypassing all of the above steps, you can get to the ‘Signup’ button. [Of course, you still have to follow the same steps outlined above before you can sign up!] Is the assumption that all users will sign up via the app?

Every step takes the user’s patience, and this is even before they have signed up to a single author.

Readers may sign up if they are coming for a celebrity writer or Instagram influencer, but it flouts all-known best practices for a best-in-class user experience for the other readers who may otherwise explore the talent on the platform.

There are a total of ELEVEN steps to complete a signup today from the home page ‘Sign in.’ button without a shortcut available. How many casual readers do you know who will patiently walk through and create yet another new login on yet another platform online?

Poor Navigational Choices

1. Multiple-clicks to a Writer’s Posts - Rather than make it excessively simple for a user to subscribe and start reading their chosen author’s posts, the platform insists, each time, to force a user to make multiple decisions - even though it is proven that more decisions lead to user fatigue and that the consumer world is better off adopting the successful one-click process. It appears that the first writer is the hook to force a user to then choose multiple other unknown writers and publications, and recommend the author before reading a single post. If you are the writer the user has chosen, you need to be asking, why is the user not being led to my page immediately, with options to recommend other writers later? I wonder what percent of users adopt recommendations, abandon, or convert based on the current flows.

   This is the current 3-5 step process after a user clicks ‘subscribe.’

   1. Step 1: The user is invited to choose a subscription plan though they may be just exploring and have no idea if they wish to subscribe. They will choose ‘None'.’

      

   2. Step 2: The user has no idea without reading a post if they want to recommend, and this hint assumes they have readers! If you are listed in these recommendations, you may like it, but it is not intuitive for a user to abandon their original decision to subscribe to writer A, and be forced to choose 3 more writers they know nothing about.

      

   3. Step 3-4: The user is yet to see the author’s posts. The user is asked to make another decision but the user has no idea what this publication is about - yet! Another futile decision step. It is too early in the flow. If the author has a podcast, this turns into a 5-step process.

      

      

      All this complex flow does is induce user fatigue and increase their chances of abandonment of the original writer they chose to check out.

      Yet, elsewhere, a user is allowed to do a one-click subscription via Notes (see below) without any other decisions. This is because the platform has decided to keep the user scrolling through Notes.

      

      Why can’t the same one-click subscription be enabled throughout the platform, regardless of how the user chooses to access it? All known best practices are flouted in the user onboarding process.

2. Complex Flows, Inaccessible Choices: When a writer logs or re-logins, the Home page they are directed to is designed to enrich community and platform involvement, rather than to get to the task at hand - write. Without a specific ‘Write’ button anywhere on the page. To write, the user has to navigate to the Dashboard for a new post or navigate further to get to their Drafts.

   1. Inaccessible Buttons: Why is the ‘Start Writing’ button on the bottom of the page, instead of at the top?

      

   2. Why can’t the formatting bar appear inline where the user needs it rather than up top? Is it because Medium does it so intuitively?

   3. Why can’t a user bulk manage their subscriptions as a one-click option if they have subscriptions to more than 10 writers? On the web, it becomes an extra effort to visit each writer’s page subscription, select ‘Manage Subscription’ under your Profile (which isn’t an intuitive placement), and then choose what to unsubscribe from. Of course, you can unsubscribe from email and it still navigates to the same page, but it gets tricky. If a writer has multiple sections set up, there is no ‘one-click’ Unsubscribe all button when accessed via email (as promised in the email footer) but it appears if a user chooses ‘Manage Subscription’ from the Profile.

   

3. Inconsistent Features, Complex Settings, and Navigation: What is the design philosophy between app and web access? The constant discovery of what they can do on the web versus app may cause fatigue.

   1. Why is it that you cannot edit posts or manage your subscription from the app? Why can you edit Notes but not comments?

      Marc Typo
      also highlighted that while you can convert your comment into a ‘Post’ on the web, you cannot in the app.

   2. Cross-posts: Why can’t we delete a cross-post post? Why are we allowed to cross-post from our Archive but later, not allowed to undo the cross-post?

   3. Explore tab defaults to all, and a user has to choose ‘Following’ from the drop-down menu to see posts of those they follow on the app. Also, the app shows an option to check the Notes of those you follow. But on the web, that option disappears and instead, you have to choose from Recommendations, Staff Picks, and Topics. So where did ‘Following’ go?

   4. Why can’t a user show multiple publications of the author, why is it necessary to choose a ‘Primary,’ especially, if they are in different areas - for instance, Culture, Literature, and Science? It seems to be an engineering limitation that is imposed on the user.

   5. Settings are split between user, publication, and post. However, it is unclear why Privacy is set under the user profile, but not referenced under ‘Community,’ and several writers are left wondering why they cannot mention others. It is unclear what philosophy drove the settings to be split in so many places requiring a user to understand each level of Settings separately. Could they at least have been labeled - ‘Main Settings,’ ‘Post Settings,’ etc.?

   6. Before publishing a post, a user has to decide on relevant settings but once they have chosen the settings, they can only ‘X’ out [placed un-intuitively at the far left corner] which indicates a ‘Cancel’ or ‘Close’ not a ‘Save and Close,’ and then has to go back to the previous screen to ‘Continue.’ This is outside of user interface best practices to not enable a user to know if a selection has been saved or not.

   7. When you are on the web home page, under ‘Explore,’ the site shows you a list of ‘Featured’ writers, and asks you to ‘+’ add them, presumably as a follower, but instead, it goes into another tab showing the writer’s subscription plans. If they feature 10 writers, it navigates to 10 new tabs! Why not let the ‘+’ be for follow or one-click subscription? In my view, the platform is trying too hard to convert users into paying subscribers but that is not how users typically make purchases online.

   8. You can @mention this in some places but not in others (thanks

      Barbara Tien
      for reminding me of this issue.) No help shows up to suggest why you cannot tag someone so writers keep wondering in Notes what the issue is! The setting to toggle is in the user profile!

   9. Privacy Concerns:

      1. ‘Block’ doesn’t mean what you think it does: While I was checking the documentation on the first field ‘Suggested Publications,’ I discovered something interesting about the effects of blocking a user.

         Here is what the documentation says:

         

         This means that if a user is blocked because they have written what you consider offensive (after all it is your Note!), everyone else except the writer can still read their offensive message and presumably reply in support! I doubt users expect this! A slippery slope. [Hack]

      2. ‘Report’ User: Although I haven't personally encountered this issue, other users have shared on the platform in notes and comments that when utilizing the 'Report' feature to report a user, the individual in violation can view the information of the user reporting it. This deviates from the standard best practices observed on most platforms, where such information is typically kept confidential. The issue may be that the ‘Settings’ suggests this field as a way for other users to report violations to the publication owner. But what if the users are reporting on the owner? An edge case that may have been overlooked.

         

   10. Sometimes you can follow everyone who likes a post, other times you cannot. On a post I liked, I could not follow anyone except Sandra McCarthy - why are the other 4 hidden (see below)? There is no option to see them at all. On other posts with a lot of likes, I can see more than 20 people to follow and then randomly, they are hidden. There is something on the developer’s mind about the need to stop the follows, and a user needs to know what!

   

4. Complex Communication Forums: Notes, Chats, Threads are unnecessarily complex variants of the same need for communication.

   1. Missing Communication Features: Why can’t users chat with their writers and subscribers 1-1 ? Why must all conversations be in public mode? How is a subscriber to communicate with a writer 1-1? Every chat application online has a default private mode.

   2. Because of the absence of (a) you need to discover other means, but Emails are a bear to send while retaining your privacy from the platform.

   3. Under the Notifications menu, a user is notified of a comment to a Note, but there is no navigation back to the original comment. So there is no way to tell how to check what they read and then to continue the thread. This creates a barrier to community engagement. Imagine on the app, the frustration when a user wants to check their original Note and respond to the comment. They can’t. Why can’t new subscribers be shown in the Notifications menu as well as in email if the setting is set to both?

5. Bugs: crop up all over the platform.

   1. Many issues across the board, but no simple way to report a bug. The expectation to notify the platform of a bug via the app is unrealistic and impractical. All you have to do is read any thread across the platform, and you will find user issues scattered through all of them. Imagine how difficult it must be for the support team to collate these!

   2. The audio option only plays the first published post, not the updated one.

   3. Email posting is filled with content typos.

   4. Help pages don’t share limitations of features, so a user does not know what they cannot do with a feature unless they are already committed to it.

   5. The sub-list I have created in these posts is numbered as letters a-e, but on the app, they show up as numbered lists - 1. 2.!

   6. The image gallery feature does not work as it should! Requires a single caption for 9 images, captions cannot be edited, images don’t crop smart, etc.

   7. Images inserted from Unsplash have the captions appear as a paragraph sometimes. Sometimes, they appear as captions.

   8. A user cannot cut and paste the caption text if they move the image around. The caption disappears!

   9. A user can copy but not paste one footnote text to another when changing or deleting footnotes, or captions of images. The copy function doesn’t work in numbered lists at all.

6. Reader: If a core platform feature is to have users subscribe and read, then their existing methods to enable reading is extremely poor. If a user has 100 writers they are subscribed to, it is nearly impossible to keep up. There is no way to mark favorite writers, no way to filter by name or topic or to simply execute a search. Read my suggested strategies.

7. Pricing flexibility: Why is the platform locked into a single payment gateway, Stripe? Why can’t a user link their bank account to be paid directly after deduction of fees? Why can’t the user choose pricing options - by article, by section, or by bundling posts?

8. Recommendations: Why can’t a user decide the organization of the recommendations? Why can’t they be chosen by topic? The user needs to manage 100 recommendations without any tools to navigate, choose, order, and select. The algorithm for how they are chosen on the home page is not transparent.

9. SEO: For some reason, despite the right settings being turned on a Google search will yield Medium articles but not Substack. Is this by design? Sure, you can hack Google search consoles but should that be necessary?

This is just a macro rendering of the issues to illustrate the points.

There are well-known best practices to solve all of these workflow issues and inconsistent feature designs.

It starts with putting the user - i.e. the writer or reader - at the center of the design, and then building a feature out.

This is a fundamental product management requirement!

In the absence of these intuitive features, writers are focused on sharing FAQs, hosting paid workshops to explain base features, exchanging hacks, asking each other for fixes, and explaining the platform to casual readers. What about the many readers who won’t sign-up?

This in itself indicates an engineering-oriented and not a customer-oriented platform.

Substack's intricate login process, complex subscription flow, and inconsistent features hinder user experience. A shift towards a more intuitive, user-centric design philosophy is crucial. Streamlining navigation, enhancing communication tools, and fostering transparency can transform Substack into a customer-focused platform, aligning with industry best practices.

What does Substack do well? More on that in a future post!

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If you found this useful, please share your experiences as well below! Thanks for reading.