As a QA in the tech industry I agree with what you have written and I honestly think that the end user experience was not considered thoughtfully.
What happens in a lot of these instances is coders tend to be QA guys forgetting that the vast majority of people that use apps do not think like them.
People ( in general) want a simple and easy to use user interface, a simple log in page and basically want it good to go out of the box.
That is what people expect in this day in age and at times I wonder what sort of QA teams have been put together for apps.
As a former business analyst in the tech industry, I've seen time and time again that those testing the functionality are the same folks who designed the requirements and therefore know what it *should* do. Thereby anything outside of intended functionality gets overlooked — or in this case the majority of user-centric navigability. I very much agree with your take.
I do. I tend to switch off if I can from work but once I read your article I kinda re-checked everything and was starting to wonder if I should be offering them my services.
There is a learning curve to using this app that almost needs a tutorial for those not tech savvy.
What also bothers me is not being to opt out of features... like Notes for instance.
I actually love the premise of substack as it is a great place for myself ( personally) to kinda get a testing audience for some of my writing but I do not enjoy this social media aspect to the app now.
Thanks for sharing that. Agree on the need to 'switch off.' I am working on 101 post as well for newbies if they ever make it past the horrendous onboarding process! I included your great idea on opting into Notes in my other post.
Hey cool and glad I could add a bit to your already clearly stated issues I also have with the app.
One of the things you did mention that has always bothered me is asking for people to sub to a writer before even getting a chance to read their articles to decide if you want to sub to them.
For instance with some of the cultural pieces you have to literally check a few of their articles first as for all you know it could be a conspiracy nut or misinformation junkie. ( which thanks to the moral outrage of the nazi-gate) I am now also kinda getting stuck in that feed as part of the algorithm.
Totally my bad for ducking down that rabbit-hole and I should have ignored it like I try to do most things that are not with-in my ability to change ( nor would I want to as I am not qualified to make decisions on freedom of speech).
I look at substack as still evolving and I truly hope they start to get it right.
In saying that ( as you and I know) in the tech industry it also matters about the coins coming in more so than the coins going out and they do obviously need to make money.
I highly doubt there are many souls that get involved in the tech industry for moral reasons unless that is the name of the bank.
It is what it is.
Also love your writing style on your articles.
I think you make some very valid and transparent points.
I'm a web and graphic designer, and although my focus leans more toward front-end UX and beautiful visual design, I spent way too much time acquainting myself with the backend set up of my own newsletter. It was confusing, not intuitive at all. It's very bare bones, and yes, too many steps! I'm going to be working with clients, helping them set up their own Substack accounts. Most of the so-called functionality seems unnecessary and quite cumbersome, goddess help folx if they're not so tech savvy to begin with. Thank you so much for writing about this, and for the wonderful list of suggestions/fixes.
Glad to see your comment. I came to Substack in November to start a newsletter and find a supportive writing community. I haven’t even written my first post. I’m not a techie, but rather a hopeful user. I’m not interested in pecking around like a chicken trying to figure it out. There is nothing simple about using Substack. It is indeed quite frustrating.
I hear that. I have a website client who wants to be on Substack. She has asked me to help her make that happen. I'm so glad that I spent the time getting to know the platform before working with her. I think I'm going to start marketing myself to potential Substackers who don't want to do that initial set-up. Good luck with your newsletter!
Aha!! I taught technical writing to engineers at the college level, and when they complained about being forced to take a writing class, this is the kind of thing I warned them about. (Designing a product they could not explain in a way that made it useful and accessible) In fact, I brought in print manuals and assigned them to re-write, re-create them. They had to also produce a set of instructions for a process and demonstrate it for the class. They hated those assignments, but ....
To your point, I do enjoy writing for Substack, but am in the dark when it comes to designing my welcome (home) page, finding good stuff to read, and everything else you bring up in this piece. Very precise and helpful. Thank you.
On the opposite note, when my compiler teacher assigned actual papers to write, which involved analyzing a technical text and responding to it, my writing / reading / humanities background got me an A. (Not an easy one, but I knew what I was doing.)
So many useful suggestions for improvement, including making it easier for readers to read a post they've been drawn to on Substack by a writer's promotion.
Excellent post. Your point about "Aren’t readers the real customers of the platform for without readers, the writers are reading each others stacks?" --- This resonated deeply with me. It feels like it's mostly writers connecting with other writers on here.
Thanks for sharing. I agree Niall, this was my initial observation as well when I joined Substack. It seems like writers with substantial followings from existing publications or social media gain more visibility. I'm uncertain about how many paid readers are drawn to these writers rather than the platform itself. They may not be exploring as much. Substack should reconsider its algorithm for new writers without a following, and drive reader traffic to them.
The flaws in Block and Mute are most concerning to me. These features are in place to protect people from harassment and can be life saving for those with mental health challenges.
In addition you to the concerns raised in this post I continue to see restacked content from people who I have blocked or muted. This is rich from a content platform that suggests we are all responsible for moderating our own feeds and publications, but don’t give us the tools to do so.
If I hadn't already subscribed to Tech Made Simple I would have based on this article alone. I played around with everything for a couple months and officially launched my newsletter on January 1. Even in that little amount of time I've encountered SO MANY of the issues noted here.
One of the most irritating for me is when it suggests other authors to subscribe to but won't let me visit them to see if I like what they write about before subscribing. If I'm actually curious I have to uncheck everything then go search for the name of the newsletter and check it out. A lot of people in my personal network found the process too onerous and didn't bother to subscribe to my newsletter though I know they wanted to.
Please tell me this article was engraved in stone, notarized, and sent to the CEO of Substack (and every single employee) via Certified Mail. They should be fixing these many issues before expanding too far into new features.
Thanks Jason, lol on the stone engraving comment - well, I did the Note engraving and mentioned the founders in my restacked note, but never heard back.
Jayshree, I’ve got another odd UX miss for your list:
In the mobile app, the inbox is weirdly organized around what Substack thinks is important: there’s a selector for All, Paid, Free, and Saved.
But as a user on mobile, taking a short break, I need to know: what have I not read yet that I’m interested in, what am I in the middle of reading, and what have I already processed?
I don’t really care if content is “Paid” or not (though obviously, Substack cares about that *a whole lot* ), I need that slider to be “Unread”, “In-process of reading”, and “Saved” as a bare minimum.
Moments before reading this impressive rundown of areas that leave great opportunity for improvement, I was thinking, gosh, the use of "Home" as a descriptor would be a nightmare for instructions in technical writing. It means different things depending on where you are on the platform. For instance, "Home" on the Writer Dashboard is different than "Home" that takes you to the feed for Notes.
My favorite aspect that you call out is the user fatigue and risk of abandonment of the original author's work due to the excessive prompts to reach a post. My own father bailed on something I had written because at a glance he thought he needed to login when confronted with the subscription page, and he's technically savvy.
I look forward to seeing what else finds its way to this list as readership grows.
Thanks for sharing! Great catch - yes, Home is mapped to different pages, views map differently, and Settings are 3-layered rather than grouped. It can be a maze! I did bail after my first attempt to experiment last summer. I returned 90 days later to bell the cat! lol. I hope your father returns to read your posts, you can also share a direct link with him that should not require a login.
Good point ... My wife bailed at the Welcome page of a writer I pointed her to. The two choices of “subscribe” and “Not now” left her feeling like it was a dead end. On my welcome page, I changed “Not now” to “Read it first. It’s free!”
That's a great suggestion. But how is a newbie to read a newbie post ? Some of my Medium subscribers left me comments on my Medium page for my substack post and I ported it over! lol!
Good point. A newbie writer might not know the “Not now” text could be changed. I found out in a Writer’s Office Hours thread. I think it would help somewhat if that prompt looked like a clickable button.
To Substack’s credit, they do allow lots of customization, including that prompt. And the Office Hours is something I haven’t seen the likes of anywhere else.
Mine reads, "But we've only just met!" because it's what I think every time I encounter that prompt. It makes me curious what the product design logic was in the first place. How often does someone come across something on the internet (or in real life) and say, "Heck yeah!! I'm in with zero context! Let's do this!!!"
This is excellent. As a reader-only, I find substack a PITA. You can no longer save a post and also archive it on the app, so if I want to refer to something again, I either need to keep it in the inbox or write down the title to look it up again. I've tried off emails and only readnin the app and that's definitely not what you're "supposed" to do and boy, do they let you know it. Such potential, such shitty execution. Any semblance of customer service would go a long way, but all the FAQs are geared towards writers. Bit without readers....
True. Good catch on FAQ slanted to writers. Reading is truly rough - I provided some strategies in another post (link below). I think it is a question of prioritization of product roadmaps.
So many good points here, including this one: “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.” Making the site/app more intuitive, less cumbersome for both readers and writers would seem to be job one.
Makes sense why some Substacks are making money on teaching others how to use it because how
Inefficient it can sometimes feel. I love the platform, I know and hope it’ll get better. My biggest frustration is with the app. Only on the browser version do I get the option to post to notes when I’m leaving a comment. Also, I think about how much money Substack is losing because of using Stripe. How easy would it be for the money to funnel straight to our account. Tax purposes I guess? Thank you for this write up.
Thanks, Marc for the feedback, I cover the inconsistencies between the app and the browser. I will add your point on the posting comments to notes option to the list of differences.
Lol, thanks, Marc! I hear Kristina God has a podcast interview coming up ;-) Of course I can't @mention her in the comments, because, surprise, it doesn't work!
Haha we can keep this going for a while. I actually don’t mind that feature not being included. People are already a list of 100 names in their post to get attention. If they enable this feature in comments, it might ruin the intimacy space in the comments. What are your thoughts on this?
App displays posts in a default typeface, ignoring the choice set by the author. (This might be true for background color, as well. Or, is bg color ignored when app is set to dark mode by design?)
App font size options barely change the displayed font size.
App Notes post quotes (not certain of the correct term) are unreadably small and don’t seem to be affected by the font size setting.
Post preview (prior to publishing) doesn’t permit dark mode, or “as viewed in the app”. (needed to catch white backgrounds on images that are supposed to have transparency)
Analytics are inconsistent (when the same item shows up in different places, they sometimes show different numbers).
Analytic data from past posts sometimes change in impossible ways (I’ve seen “email opens” *decrease*.)
Default timeframe for subscriber analytics defaults to 90 days ... the least useful of the three choices, IMO.
Support reports and suggestions rarely get a response. There’s no indication if something is being worked or rejected, or where it is in the update process.
Thanks for the feedback, Dave, will roll them in on a future update. Regarding support tickets - this is one I left out - I agree - my support tickets didn't get acknowledged either.
Good list! I hope that some of these issues can be solved quickly. I’ve encouraged quite a few people to ‘get on Substack’ but they seem to flounder very quickly. ‘Too complicated.’
Thanks for your feedback! Yes, I abandoned it too for many months after the first attempt. I returned more determined as a professional! ;-) Tough intro to platform.
As a QA in the tech industry I agree with what you have written and I honestly think that the end user experience was not considered thoughtfully.
What happens in a lot of these instances is coders tend to be QA guys forgetting that the vast majority of people that use apps do not think like them.
People ( in general) want a simple and easy to use user interface, a simple log in page and basically want it good to go out of the box.
That is what people expect in this day in age and at times I wonder what sort of QA teams have been put together for apps.
As a former business analyst in the tech industry, I've seen time and time again that those testing the functionality are the same folks who designed the requirements and therefore know what it *should* do. Thereby anything outside of intended functionality gets overlooked — or in this case the majority of user-centric navigability. I very much agree with your take.
Thank you for sharing!
Agreed Joshua. Also, as QA, do you wonder at the lack of basic feature testing?
I do. I tend to switch off if I can from work but once I read your article I kinda re-checked everything and was starting to wonder if I should be offering them my services.
There is a learning curve to using this app that almost needs a tutorial for those not tech savvy.
What also bothers me is not being to opt out of features... like Notes for instance.
I actually love the premise of substack as it is a great place for myself ( personally) to kinda get a testing audience for some of my writing but I do not enjoy this social media aspect to the app now.
Thanks for sharing that. Agree on the need to 'switch off.' I am working on 101 post as well for newbies if they ever make it past the horrendous onboarding process! I included your great idea on opting into Notes in my other post.
Hey cool and glad I could add a bit to your already clearly stated issues I also have with the app.
One of the things you did mention that has always bothered me is asking for people to sub to a writer before even getting a chance to read their articles to decide if you want to sub to them.
For instance with some of the cultural pieces you have to literally check a few of their articles first as for all you know it could be a conspiracy nut or misinformation junkie. ( which thanks to the moral outrage of the nazi-gate) I am now also kinda getting stuck in that feed as part of the algorithm.
Totally my bad for ducking down that rabbit-hole and I should have ignored it like I try to do most things that are not with-in my ability to change ( nor would I want to as I am not qualified to make decisions on freedom of speech).
I look at substack as still evolving and I truly hope they start to get it right.
In saying that ( as you and I know) in the tech industry it also matters about the coins coming in more so than the coins going out and they do obviously need to make money.
I highly doubt there are many souls that get involved in the tech industry for moral reasons unless that is the name of the bank.
It is what it is.
Also love your writing style on your articles.
I think you make some very valid and transparent points.
I'm a web and graphic designer, and although my focus leans more toward front-end UX and beautiful visual design, I spent way too much time acquainting myself with the backend set up of my own newsletter. It was confusing, not intuitive at all. It's very bare bones, and yes, too many steps! I'm going to be working with clients, helping them set up their own Substack accounts. Most of the so-called functionality seems unnecessary and quite cumbersome, goddess help folx if they're not so tech savvy to begin with. Thank you so much for writing about this, and for the wonderful list of suggestions/fixes.
100% this as someone also from the industry.
You have hit the nail on the head.
Glad to see your comment. I came to Substack in November to start a newsletter and find a supportive writing community. I haven’t even written my first post. I’m not a techie, but rather a hopeful user. I’m not interested in pecking around like a chicken trying to figure it out. There is nothing simple about using Substack. It is indeed quite frustrating.
I hear that. I have a website client who wants to be on Substack. She has asked me to help her make that happen. I'm so glad that I spent the time getting to know the platform before working with her. I think I'm going to start marketing myself to potential Substackers who don't want to do that initial set-up. Good luck with your newsletter!
That is true, Nan. I am quite amazed at these finds! Thanks for sharing!
Aha!! I taught technical writing to engineers at the college level, and when they complained about being forced to take a writing class, this is the kind of thing I warned them about. (Designing a product they could not explain in a way that made it useful and accessible) In fact, I brought in print manuals and assigned them to re-write, re-create them. They had to also produce a set of instructions for a process and demonstrate it for the class. They hated those assignments, but ....
To your point, I do enjoy writing for Substack, but am in the dark when it comes to designing my welcome (home) page, finding good stuff to read, and everything else you bring up in this piece. Very precise and helpful. Thank you.
A good example of the technical writing class. Spot on!
Thanks for sharing and your feedback. Appreciate it.
On the opposite note, when my compiler teacher assigned actual papers to write, which involved analyzing a technical text and responding to it, my writing / reading / humanities background got me an A. (Not an easy one, but I knew what I was doing.)
So many useful suggestions for improvement, including making it easier for readers to read a post they've been drawn to on Substack by a writer's promotion.
Thanks so much, Patricia! I appreciate your feedback.
Excellent post. Your point about "Aren’t readers the real customers of the platform for without readers, the writers are reading each others stacks?" --- This resonated deeply with me. It feels like it's mostly writers connecting with other writers on here.
Thanks for sharing. I agree Niall, this was my initial observation as well when I joined Substack. It seems like writers with substantial followings from existing publications or social media gain more visibility. I'm uncertain about how many paid readers are drawn to these writers rather than the platform itself. They may not be exploring as much. Substack should reconsider its algorithm for new writers without a following, and drive reader traffic to them.
I love connecting with writers on here, don't get me wrong. Substack does have a great community. Hopefully, more reader traffic will be generated.
Absolutely. Me too! But I am quite sure most writers are also interested in the readership equation.
The flaws in Block and Mute are most concerning to me. These features are in place to protect people from harassment and can be life saving for those with mental health challenges.
In addition you to the concerns raised in this post I continue to see restacked content from people who I have blocked or muted. This is rich from a content platform that suggests we are all responsible for moderating our own feeds and publications, but don’t give us the tools to do so.
These tools are the bare minimum @Substack.
Yes, the privacy controls need a relook. Thanks for sharing Sarah, I'll add the restack point.
Yes, augmenting Sarah’s points about privacy controls. It’s one reason why I’m only reading on Notes or in email right now.
Jayshree, Well put. I hope someone takes your suggestions to heart. D
Thanks Dave, maybe they can hire me? ;-)
Wouldn't that be great. D
Lol!
If I hadn't already subscribed to Tech Made Simple I would have based on this article alone. I played around with everything for a couple months and officially launched my newsletter on January 1. Even in that little amount of time I've encountered SO MANY of the issues noted here.
One of the most irritating for me is when it suggests other authors to subscribe to but won't let me visit them to see if I like what they write about before subscribing. If I'm actually curious I have to uncheck everything then go search for the name of the newsletter and check it out. A lot of people in my personal network found the process too onerous and didn't bother to subscribe to my newsletter though I know they wanted to.
Please tell me this article was engraved in stone, notarized, and sent to the CEO of Substack (and every single employee) via Certified Mail. They should be fixing these many issues before expanding too far into new features.
Thanks Jason, lol on the stone engraving comment - well, I did the Note engraving and mentioned the founders in my restacked note, but never heard back.
Jayshree, I’ve got another odd UX miss for your list:
In the mobile app, the inbox is weirdly organized around what Substack thinks is important: there’s a selector for All, Paid, Free, and Saved.
But as a user on mobile, taking a short break, I need to know: what have I not read yet that I’m interested in, what am I in the middle of reading, and what have I already processed?
I don’t really care if content is “Paid” or not (though obviously, Substack cares about that *a whole lot* ), I need that slider to be “Unread”, “In-process of reading”, and “Saved” as a bare minimum.
Great point!
Moments before reading this impressive rundown of areas that leave great opportunity for improvement, I was thinking, gosh, the use of "Home" as a descriptor would be a nightmare for instructions in technical writing. It means different things depending on where you are on the platform. For instance, "Home" on the Writer Dashboard is different than "Home" that takes you to the feed for Notes.
My favorite aspect that you call out is the user fatigue and risk of abandonment of the original author's work due to the excessive prompts to reach a post. My own father bailed on something I had written because at a glance he thought he needed to login when confronted with the subscription page, and he's technically savvy.
I look forward to seeing what else finds its way to this list as readership grows.
Thanks for sharing! Great catch - yes, Home is mapped to different pages, views map differently, and Settings are 3-layered rather than grouped. It can be a maze! I did bail after my first attempt to experiment last summer. I returned 90 days later to bell the cat! lol. I hope your father returns to read your posts, you can also share a direct link with him that should not require a login.
Good point ... My wife bailed at the Welcome page of a writer I pointed her to. The two choices of “subscribe” and “Not now” left her feeling like it was a dead end. On my welcome page, I changed “Not now” to “Read it first. It’s free!”
That's a great suggestion. But how is a newbie to read a newbie post ? Some of my Medium subscribers left me comments on my Medium page for my substack post and I ported it over! lol!
Good point. A newbie writer might not know the “Not now” text could be changed. I found out in a Writer’s Office Hours thread. I think it would help somewhat if that prompt looked like a clickable button.
To Substack’s credit, they do allow lots of customization, including that prompt. And the Office Hours is something I haven’t seen the likes of anywhere else.
Mine reads, "But we've only just met!" because it's what I think every time I encounter that prompt. It makes me curious what the product design logic was in the first place. How often does someone come across something on the internet (or in real life) and say, "Heck yeah!! I'm in with zero context! Let's do this!!!"
This is excellent. As a reader-only, I find substack a PITA. You can no longer save a post and also archive it on the app, so if I want to refer to something again, I either need to keep it in the inbox or write down the title to look it up again. I've tried off emails and only readnin the app and that's definitely not what you're "supposed" to do and boy, do they let you know it. Such potential, such shitty execution. Any semblance of customer service would go a long way, but all the FAQs are geared towards writers. Bit without readers....
True. Good catch on FAQ slanted to writers. Reading is truly rough - I provided some strategies in another post (link below). I think it is a question of prioritization of product roadmaps.
https://open.substack.com/pub/techmadesimpleguide/p/so-many-articles-so-little-time?r=1si0oc&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
I’ve been wanting a “mark as unread” so I could find and go back to a post I’ve only partially read.
And, as long as we’re on the subject, I’ve found it far too easy to mistakenly save or archive (ie delete) posts in the app.
This is a good point, thanks for sharing!
*turned off emails
So many good points here, including this one: “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.” Making the site/app more intuitive, less cumbersome for both readers and writers would seem to be job one.
Thanks so much, Sarah for sharing!
Thanks for writing the post!
Makes sense why some Substacks are making money on teaching others how to use it because how
Inefficient it can sometimes feel. I love the platform, I know and hope it’ll get better. My biggest frustration is with the app. Only on the browser version do I get the option to post to notes when I’m leaving a comment. Also, I think about how much money Substack is losing because of using Stripe. How easy would it be for the money to funnel straight to our account. Tax purposes I guess? Thank you for this write up.
Thanks, Marc for the feedback, I cover the inconsistencies between the app and the browser. I will add your point on the posting comments to notes option to the list of differences.
That was fast!
lol - it is added as well!
If the powers that be were hiring, you'd have my recommendation (not that it would mean anything, but you get it! haha)
Lol, thanks, Marc! I hear Kristina God has a podcast interview coming up ;-) Of course I can't @mention her in the comments, because, surprise, it doesn't work!
Haha we can keep this going for a while. I actually don’t mind that feature not being included. People are already a list of 100 names in their post to get attention. If they enable this feature in comments, it might ruin the intimacy space in the comments. What are your thoughts on this?
Great analysis!
Here are a few more items for the list ...
App displays posts in a default typeface, ignoring the choice set by the author. (This might be true for background color, as well. Or, is bg color ignored when app is set to dark mode by design?)
App font size options barely change the displayed font size.
App Notes post quotes (not certain of the correct term) are unreadably small and don’t seem to be affected by the font size setting.
Post preview (prior to publishing) doesn’t permit dark mode, or “as viewed in the app”. (needed to catch white backgrounds on images that are supposed to have transparency)
Analytics are inconsistent (when the same item shows up in different places, they sometimes show different numbers).
Analytic data from past posts sometimes change in impossible ways (I’ve seen “email opens” *decrease*.)
Default timeframe for subscriber analytics defaults to 90 days ... the least useful of the three choices, IMO.
Support reports and suggestions rarely get a response. There’s no indication if something is being worked or rejected, or where it is in the update process.
I’m sure there are more I’ll think of later.
Thanks for the feedback, Dave, will roll them in on a future update. Regarding support tickets - this is one I left out - I agree - my support tickets didn't get acknowledged either.
This article makes so much sense. Thanks for this. I thought I was the only one who was struggling to just read on this platform.
Thanks Supriya, it is a tough sell for a reader. I am working on a tips post, stay tuned ;-)
Good list! I hope that some of these issues can be solved quickly. I’ve encouraged quite a few people to ‘get on Substack’ but they seem to flounder very quickly. ‘Too complicated.’
Thanks for your feedback! Yes, I abandoned it too for many months after the first attempt. I returned more determined as a professional! ;-) Tough intro to platform.