SubTool and SubSearch

Problem Statement

‍How might we improve usage and content creation for online readers, writers, and journalists by streamlining the customer experience on our online publication platform?

Problem Background
Initially, the problem stemmed from Substack's position against Medium, with Medium having a larger share in the online publishing industry. However, Substack provides more control to creators, thereby leading to a more stable income. Therefore, Substack’s appeal lies in its ability to facilitate consistent audiences, but it still needs to provide a compelling experience to attract and convert more users.

Research Insights

User interviews revealed that writers often struggle with content structure and formatting while readers desire more personalized recommendations. The data showed that efficiency and personalization are key drivers of user satisfaction.

User Pain Points

1. Writers face challenges in organizing content effectively and staying productive.
2. Readers have difficulty discovering content that aligns with their interests.

Supporting Data

Quantitative Highlights

Assuming a rating of 1-3 out 7 is unsatisfactory/difficult, 4-5 is average and 6-7 is satisfactory/seamless, the following are the ratings gathered from the survey:

• Overall user writing experience had an average of approximately 5.2/7.
• Overall user reading experience had an average of approximately 5.8/7.

Qualitative Highlights

• Some users write directly on the publishing platform, while others use separate tools such as Notion before posting.
• Challenges include fragmented research tools and difficulty in structuring content.
• Common difficulties in writing include citation management, content organization, and embedding references. Some users also struggle with content formatting and image copyright concerns.
• Key friction points in reading include excessive ads and lack of content recommendations.
• Readers tend to find their content through social media shares and chats

Feedback

Preliminary user research, especially among freelance writers and bloggers, confirmed the need for a solution that would automate content structuring and enhance content discovery.

Landing on the Solution

Based on our target users’ pain points, we knew we wanted to work on the following features:

1. Real-time grammar and content improvement suggestions.
2. Personalized content recommendations tailored to user behavior.

Explanation of Solution

SubTool: Digital workspaces are essential tools in the publishing industry, and a lot of them already use AI to help with tasks. But imagine a workspace that can suggest changes as you work, automatically apply italics and bold formatting, adjust tables, and tweak the structure of the piece to match the tone and professional standard of your content. On top of that, it would gather insights based on the data in your work and show you trends. This kind of adaptive workspace is smart because it can adjust to your needs as you go, making your work more efficient and intuitive.

SubSearch: Most assistants sit quietly in the background, waiting to help when you ask for it. But, this solution blends the easy conversations you might see on tools like ChatGPT, with the smart recommendations you'd find on platforms like Netflix. Instead of just offering suggestions, the assistant asks you a few quick questions to tune its recommendations - without messing with the core model. This way, it can adapt to you in real-time while still keeping things smooth and personalized.

User Flows/Mockups

Figma Prototype - ^{Click AI Workspace toggle to begin interaction, then click highlighted text | Click Search bar twice or Search Bar once then heart once}

Miro User Flow

Future Steps

This is what we learned from speaking to customers:
Researching and Writing are time intensive, unstructured and unintegrated, and they are further complicated when attempting to cite and embed references properly. Therefore, better integration between research, writing, and publishing tools is needed.

Users tend to find written content when links are shared in chats or social media posts, but aren’t satisfied with the recommendations provided by publishing platforms. So an improvement in content discovery and recommendations may be valuable.

Possible additional problems to address:

1. How to further integrate SubTool into a broader range of publishing platforms.
2. Expanding the personalization of SubSearch to include more diverse user behaviors and streamlining the sharing features.
3. Integrating research data and papers into the workspace SubTool.