/blog

Manton linked to this wonderful animated essay about the design of RSS reader apps from Terry Godier.

The key point is that the design of RSS readers inherits "phantom obligation" from things like your email inbox where the majority of mails actually required a response.

With RSS feeds, it's up to you to subscribe. The blogger/author will still be posting even if you don't, so they aren't expecting any particular person to read everything. That's why it's called a phantom obligation — you are putting the obligation on yourself:

An interface that shows you an unread count is making an argument: that reading is something to be counted, that progress is something to be measured, that your relationship to this content is one of obligation.

This made me start thinking about the design of /reader and how I fell into the same traps as (almost) every other feed reader, even though the interface itself doesn't necessarily follow the traditional inbox-style appearance.

Terry's idea of the "river of news" is elegant (as opposed to the traditional river of news)

Content drifts upward like leaves on water. You dip in when you want. You step out when you're done.

"Some things will pass you by. That's not a bug; that's the premise."

Why leave old items in your reader if you still haven't read them after a certain amount of time? Have them float by.

The reader view already does this when not logged in; it only shows items from the past week. But the logged-in view shows everything unread — no matter how old. It also includes an unread count on the menu tray.

Why? What is the purpose? If I'm going to read them, what does it matter how many there are?

That's an easy fix, simply remove numbers and restrict the date range.

The /updates view, however, is based on numbers: how many unread, how many have been updated?

I've applied the same date range (one week) but am having difficulty reworking the experience without reference to any specific numbers. I've initially opted for listing "items" with an indicator if any are updates rather than new — no numbers, no totals.

Now, I just need to remember that older items will disappear.