EtPad: Publishing for Writers Who Escaped Google Docs Therapy
Adem Awol
1 collaborator
Category: Publishing & Community Platform
TL;DR: Google Docs Was Not the Cultural Infrastructure
Solo design sprint. Two weeks. One client. And, because peace was clearly never an option, a secret stakeholder council quietly lurked in the shadows like a bonus product-management boss fight.
EtPad was a two-week solo sprint to design a publishing and collaboration platform for Ethiopian writers surviving on WhatsApp threads, Google Docs chaos, and pure literary trauma.
Instead of cloning Medium, Wattpad, or Google Docs with a culturally confused hat on, EtPad became a focused creative home with story feeds, author profiles, collaboration tools, and version control that did not feel like administrative punishment.
The biggest lesson? When users ask, “Why not just use Google Docs?” they are really asking whether your product deserves to exist.
Collaborative editor
Story feed, and Author profile
Figma Link (Proof this wasn't just vibes in a trench coat)
Lesson: What EtPad Taught Me Besides Mild Stakeholder Paranoia
Competitive audits are not optional homework. They are the map. Study everything that failed before opening Figma and committing rectangle crimes in public.
“Why not just use Google Docs?” is never really about Google Docs. It means your product needs to prove why it deserves to exist outside your beautiful little pitch deck.
Solo sprints are fast. Shadow councils are not. Stakeholder alignment is not admin work. It is designed to work while wearing formal shoes and arriving late with opinions.
When no blueprint exists, research becomes the blueprint. The users who were ignored are often the best spec document you will ever get.
Usability testing is not a ceremony. A user smiling at the end of week one is a stronger signal than a dashboard full of decorative nonsense pretending to be insight.
Culture-specific design is not a niche. It is what happens when you stop pretending the default user is everyone.
When no platform exists for a community, that is not just a gap. That is the brief.
Start with the people. Study the failures. Design for the actual moment.
Everything else is Figma layers, naming conventions, and questionable life choices pretending to be process.
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Posted Jun 8, 2026
Designed EtPad, a publishing and collaboration platform for Ethiopian writers escaping Google Docs group-project trauma.
