Subscribing in Google Reader

Here in New Zealand, Internet service is often times slow (thanks to lower available speeds and that pesky distance thing). There are also caps on the total amount of bytes you can transfer in a month. While I enjoy visiting friends sites, It can become a costly test of patience.

As a result, I’m getting back into feed readers. What I like in a reader is quick access to new information. I have little regular need for meta-data about the information.

After fiddling a bit with some of the current offerings, I’ve decided on the recently redesigned Google Reader. Reader does offer meta-data options like tagging (Three cheers for Reader forgoing the Google only convention of calling them “Labels”) and starring, but those things never feel as if they’re in my way… Or that they’re required in order to properly use the application. Combine that simplicity with snappy article load times and keyboard shortcuts for quick movement between them and I couldn’t be happier.

...Except for one thing.

Once committing to reader, I needed to fill it up with sites. Reader includes a bookmarklet to subscribe to a site while viewing it. In theory it’s great. In practice, subscribing and placing the new site into a folder becomes a six click process.

Here’s how it works:

1. Click the subscribe bookmarklet in the browser toolbar.
2. You’re taken to Google Reader, with the feed displayed. Here you click a subscribe button.
3. Now you’re subscribed. All the posts in a feed are marked as unread. Click to mark them read.
4. Click “Manage Subscriptions”.
5. Click the “Add to folder” dropdown.
6. Click the folder you would like it in.

It’s a pretty heavy workflow. There are a variety of steps that are initiated in many places on the page. Looking at those steps in detail:

Step 1: No troubles here.

Step 2: This assumes that when you clicked subscribe you weren’t committed. There are a number of feeds out there that suck (ex: a title with that title listed again as the only body content). You should be able to easily remove the feed. Here you do nothing to unsubscribe (technically you aren’t yet subscribed – confusing!) and click to subscribe. My guess would be that canceling a subscription at this point is the minority case. If that’s true, then the most common behavior also requires the most work.

Step 3: When I subscribe to something, I’ve decided to by reading some of the posts. I don’t want to see the same posts again in my new items. I can also see another type of user. The sort who subscribes instantly, then decides later if they want to delete the feed.

Steps 4 through 6: This part gets tedious quickly. I gave up on it about half way through the dozen or so items I’ve added.

With all of that in mind, how can it be made better?

The quick answer is that it needs less clicks. The longer answer is that it could benefit from those clicks feeling like a single “subscribe or cancel” process.

Here’s my quick and dirty attempt:

The “Add Subscription” box is temporarily replaced with a box to set a few feed options:

• Place in folder is the same dropdown as in the “Manage feeds” area.
  Note: after creating this mockup, I realized you can also apply tags to full feeds. That should sit in there with folders.
• Mark articles as would remember your last choice. You would rarely, if ever, need to change it.
• Remove would remove the feed from your subscriptions and show the default view.
• Add places the feed in your subscriptions with the selected options.
• In this scenario inaction would be the same as clicking Add with the default (no folder, your last used article status) options.

With this flow, it’s possible to have a one click subscription. Click the bookmarklet, then close the window. If you need slightly more advanced options they’re easily accessible in a single place.

I think that’s an improvement.

...It’s hard to say though. At this point in an application’s life, you can’t trust paper. You really need to have something working within the functional app to get a genuine feel for it. Also, Reader appears simple, but there’s a lot going on there. Having neither worked on it, or used it for very long, there’s a high chance I’ve overlooked some important interactions.