Earthling

Note: The below is an archived entry from Earthling, formerly EarthLink's official blog. The blog itself has been decommissioned and is no longer updated, and comments are trackbacks are no longer accepted.

I was out of commission with a nasty cold for the past day and a half, so I stayed away from Reader for a decent stretch longer than usual. When I came back to it this morning, thanks to one of the new features, at the end of my first page of articles I saw this:

Previously when the number was lowish, I really liked knowing. But with the number so high today, it added some stress to my morning. Getting through my articles felt more like work than it usually does, and I felt like I had to get to all of them, instead of that breezy feeling I usually have that I can always skip a bunch and nothing bad will happen. Prior the new feature add, when I wasn't at all reminded what lay ahead at the bottom of the page, often I'd stop short and didn't feel stressed about it.

I've said before that a good test of a feed reader is what it feels like after you come back from an absence, and after this test I feel like maybe we've lost a little of that breeziness. As a Reader devotee, I think we should do some more thinking around the psychology of knowing what lies ahead. What should that moment be like when you first return after a long absence? Should that be a special case, and be handled in some special way? And on the flipside, what should happen when you get through all your recently updateds? Is there a way we can mark that moment or would that sort of goal-orientedness add to the stress factor? Maybe there's a way to mark it more than we do now without making it emphasized until you get there. A powerup or a surprise.

This is one of two new places on the app where Reader gives you a little more information. The other is in the "Recently Updated" box, which now looks like this:

I like the new timestamp lots. It gives you some good context for what you're seeing.

Reader basked in a lot of good attention when it launched, but since then I think it's gotten too comfortably nestled in its place while the closest comparable reader, Google's, has done some really innovative things. Reader is still a daily addiction for me, but it could be much better. I think there's still a huge opportunity for ours -- how about if we dedicated ourselves to making it the most stress-free and encouraging environment out there for getting through your morning's work? The app you look forward to seeing every morning, that brings you the things that are valuable to you, and does it in such a way that doesn't nag or overwhelm you on top of all of your everyday nags and concerns. It would be a worthy mission.