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UX Issues with Notion

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Re: UX Issues with Notion

#141

Post by jerieljan »

jitl wrote: post #22

(Disclaimer: I work on Notion) To me, the most interesting feedback here is that seamless-editable-by-default is a negative for this user, and as a work-around, this organization locks/unlocks every page. This is surprising to me because I find content locks and editing friction very annoying. For example I used Quip for many years, which locks any block currently being edited by someone else, which can be quite frus…

> Likewise, wouldn’t you be baffled if you needed to click a “Start Editing” button in Word or Google Docs?

I'd like to agree here, but I also find myself liking the fact that Docs has the "Viewing", "Suggesting" and "Editing" personas available for use. These options are intended to mirror Word's review features, but it also fits the idea of a "Start Editing" button, in my opinion.

There's times where I really like editing right away, but also being sure that I won't do any accidental edits. So yeah, I definitely agree that accidental edits are at the root of the problem for this.

Re: UX Issues with Notion

#142

Post by coldtea »

krsdcbl wrote: post #139
coldtea wrote: post #93

> This one is a real shame. I still can't believe it. If you select any text block, you can't navigate using Page Up and Page Down keys. So? That's probably used by less than 5% of people anyway. Seeing regular users most would just use the mouse...

No gain for 95% and a loss for 5% seems like an even worse outcome of changing default behaviour

Only if you don't take into account opportunity cost.

You assume here that they've actively worked to change default behavior, but it is probably a zero-work-required by product of the widget they used (that gives them other capabilities thet do want) and to (a) revert to plain HTML textareas would remove this, (b) to add the default behavior to their widget would take extra effort.

Re: UX Issues with Notion

#143

Post by [deleted] »

gazelleeatslion wrote: post #23
skrebbel wrote: post #10

I don't mind any of these issues to be honest, but I do mind how hopelessly slow it is. Is it also super sluggish for all you SF Bay area people? I can't tell if it's just network latency on a heavy protocol, or just slow slow.

On a new MBP M1 w16GB RAM it is really snappy. For a mere thousands of dollars you can join the fun. I imagine by M2 though this golden year will be far gone as everyone increases even more how much resources their apps eat.

[deleted]

Re: UX Issues with Notion

#144

Post by blunte »

jitl wrote: post #128
blunte wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The slash handler is surely part of the cause of the higher typing latency compared to nearly every other program I use. I know of no other app which does what they do. Other apps do things like cmd-space (spotlight, which I use ALL the time), ctrl-space (which I have mapped instead of ctrl-b in tmux), shift-shift, which opens search in JetBrains IDEs, etc. Notion could have made cmd or ctrl-/ open that menu at the c…

(I work at Notion) One of the apps you cited, JetBrains IDEs, provide extensive predictive hints and documentation in menus that automatically open after any character is typed. I think the difference between the Notion predictive menus and the JetBrain ones is an issue of performance, rather than concept. That isn’t to say the slash menu isn’t annoying - we have a lot of work to do!

VSCode had (may still have?) a problem with code completion popups that would get in the way and not go away. But it, like IDEA and other IDEs, gives you the option to disable some or all helpers. So in vsc I turned off code completion.

Just let me turn off the / helper in Notion, even if I need to edit a config file to do it.

Re: UX Issues with Notion

#145

Post by fattybob »

bobbylarrybobby wrote: post #118
smoldesu wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I enjoyed the time I had with notion, but ultimately it didn't feel "worth it" to keep around. The free tier is too restrictive, and while I preferred the premium experience, the price was ultimately much too high to stomach.

They recently upped the free tier to have unlimited blocks. I think the only restrictions on it now are uploaded file size limits

Yes and it’s prompted me to give it another go, already stalled once in it though, but still toying with it...

Re: UX Issues with Notion

#146

Post by nojvek »

Notion has annoying UX, but compared to Atlassian Confluence or Dropbox Paper it’s better.

Confluence is just awfully slow to load. Every little thing takes forever. Dropbox Paper feels like someone’s weekend project. It is so subpar and things seem to have bolted on without much thought. There’s still a lot to figure out when making a good intuitive knowledge base.

Re: UX Issues with Notion

#147

Post by nojvek »

I did some perf profiling on Notion. Their JS just takes a long time to do basic things (even interpreting keystrokes)

Seeing VSCode (which is a web tool) respond insanely fast for keystrokes and code completion makes me realize (amongst Microsoft products, Vscode is a gem - they’ve done a rare thing which is to make a complex performant web app that does editing really well)

Re: UX Issues with Notion

#148

Post by noahtallen »

porker wrote: post #90
polote wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Notion is a not a good tool to create a knowledge base, the same way Google drive is a not a good tool to create a knowledge base. If you think a bit more, notion is more or less a Google drive with smileys. Which is not a critic.

What have you found is a good tool to create a knowledge base, at a small to medium sized company?

A WordPress website with Jetpack search is surprisingly good — we use something like that at Automattic. All long-lived documentation goes in the “fieldguide” website, and it’s open (and encouraged) for anyone to add or edit pages.

Re: UX Issues with Notion

#149

Post by tracyhenry »

g7r wrote: post #130
tracyhenry wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's apparent that OP wants to disallow editing but allow commenting (see quotes down below). Notion provides exactly this feature when you share a doc but OP seems to have missed it and instead uses "lock a document" to do what he wants, which created all the problems in the first two sections. This feature is easy to find and is similar to what Google docs offers and so fairly learnable. > First thing you l…

No, I don't want do disallow editing. I do want to allow it but protect the content from accidental edits. Every time I publish a Notion page and forget to lock it, it is being accidentally modified. Some people notice it and undo. Some don't. In the combination with useless page history it is very difficult to reason whether the edit was accidental. The page could remain in accidentally modified state for a long tim…

Does "lock it" both allow editing and prevent accidental editing? What's the magic going on that distinguishes between real edits and accidental edits?

Re: UX Issues with Notion

#150

Post by tracyhenry »

kyawzazaw wrote: post #135
tracyhenry wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you really need to "lock" it as in OP? When you share you get the option to choose whether the person being shared can edit, comment or duplicate. If you disallow sharee editing, you can still edit your document.

I want some people to edit some parts only.

> some people Y you can configure access rights for each person you shared the page with.

> some parts Some parts of a page? I don't get this. Get that part into a nested page then?

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