Usability, Product Management, and LinkedIn - a rant

L
inkedIn began as a professional networking site, has evolved into a social media behemoth, and has yet managed to maintain and sharpen its focus on the professional space. That may, in part, explain why, in 2016, Microsoft chose to put down more than $26 billion Washingtons to buy LinkedIn.

While both LinkedIn's web site and mobile app have undergone substantial changes over the years, and is a far cry from the spartan look both sported just a few years ago, I wanted to call out one peculiarity - call it eccentricity - that the site has. I would call it a glaring UX and product management miss, if you will.
Let me elaborate.

email from LinkedIn in June 2014, announcing the launch of the publish feature.

Sometime in April 2014, LinkedIn introduced a feature that allowed users - by invitation at first, and everyone later - to publish their articles on LinkedIn. This feature is now a great source of user-generated content for LinkedIn, helping drive more traffic to its website. I have written a few over the last couple of years, and it's a great way to my thoughts on relevant topics in front of a relevant audience.

But Where Are My Articles?

From the LinkedIn home page, try finding a way to navigate to your articles - published or in draft mode. Go ahead, I will wait while you wander on the home page.
You can't.
Let me show. See the screenshot below. That is the home page I see when I go to LinkedIn.

1. The menu at the top contains no links to go to my articles.
2. I can click the 'Write an article' button and it will take me to the LinkedIn Publishing page, and I can start penning pristine prose there.
3. I can click the headline and view analytics on my articles or shares.

But I still cannot view a list of my articles. I can't.

• If I go to the Publishing page, and if I click the 'More' dropdown, then voila, I can see that I have finally found what I was looking for. So will you too.

Why? Why make it so darn tough to find your own articles?

• By design? Unlikely.
• Oversight? Likely. A miss, from both product management and UX. Why is an important features such as this so difficult to find? It is not even available from the home page. Why is not anyone talking about discoverability? What about the scent of information? Nielsen, Cooper, Pirolli, anyone?

Solution? Fix it. Fast.

[this post first appeared in LinkedIn on June 29th, 2017]

© 2017, Abhinav Agarwal (अभिनव अग्रवाल). All rights reserved.

Quotes - Raja Dharma Parva

The Mahabharata, Vol. 8
Translated by Bibek Debroy
[Unabridged English translation of the
Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute's
 Critical Edition of the Mahabharata]

This is a selection of quotes from the Raja Dharma Parva. This parva is one of three parvas of the Shanti Parva.

• "There cannot be a treasury without oppression and without it, how is it possible to have an army?"
  
• "When a kingdom goes into decline, the life of that king is one of shame."
  
• "There is no livelihood that exists without violence. Even a solitary sage, active and roaming in the forest, cannot manage to do that." 

• "What is said about dharma is true - it does not exist where there are no riches."
  
• "Dharma is stained by jealousy. Artha is stained by secrecy. Kama is stained by excessive addiction."
  
• "The foundation of the body is dharma, and artha is based on dharma. Kama is said to be the fruit of artha."
  
• "Dharma must not be made to decline, but nor should one come under the subjugation of the enemy." 

• "If the king's treasury is exhausted, his army will decline." 

• "It is rare to find a petitioner who is satisfied with what he has got."
  
• "It is rarer to find a person who does not disrespect a petitioner." 

• "There is nothing that is as emaciated as hope."

• "The dharma of kshatriyas is special. ... All the other dharmas are immersed in this dharma."
  
• "Dharma of vaishyas - donations, studying, the performance of sacrifices, and the accumulation of wealth."
  
• "If one is destroyed, one can perform no act of dharma." 

Quotes - Apad Dharma Parva

These are selected quotes from the Apad Dharma Parva of the Mahabharata. The quotes are taken from Vol.8 of Bibek Debroy's unabridged English translation of the Mahabahrata. I have reviewed all ten volumes, and quotes from previous volumes are also available on my blog or on the Mahabharata blog.

• "Progress on the journey does not take place along a single branch of dharma."
  
  
• "If the root cannot be taken out, nothing must be dug up." 

• "A debt that is not repaid, a fire that has not gone out and an enemy that has not been eliminated, repeatedly keep on growing." 

• "Before striking, he must speak pleasantly. After striking, it should be even more pleasant." 

• "He should be blind when it is best to be blind and he can even resort to being deaf." 

• "There is a time for allying with enemies. There is a time for fighting with friends."