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UX Issues with Notion

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Re: UX Issues with Notion

#21

Post by corobo »

blunte wrote: post #15

When I read people like or love Notion, I wish I could watch them use it. Obviously they are doing things very differently than I do... Typing latency while writing or editing a page is really high (bad). Every keypress you do, must be going through a long chain of "what can we interpret the user to be wanting ?" questions. Guess what!? The user is probably just trying to fucking type! Special features and options sh…

This comment is the only one I've read about Notion that I've agreed with. Maybe it's because it was over hyped and other people didn't already have a system in place to compare to or something?

I really tried to like Notion but I found it just slowed me down -- as in actually delayed what I was doing with lag and silly things like trying to be clever as you say, not just the learning curve

I'm now trying out Obsidian(1) with a plain old directory of md files, but YMMV I never needed the table/db stuff so I dunno if Obsidian has that sort of thing or an equivalent. The directory is mounted from my NAS using its Tailscale(2) IP so it's in theory accessible everywhere, but of course I've not been able to test that much this year

(1) https://obsidian.md/

(2) https://tailscale.com/

e: I should note I use this for bigger notes. I use blank business cards and a pen to catch ideas, so obsidian's current lack of mobile apps wasn't an issue

Re: UX Issues with Notion

#22

Post by jitl »

(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 frustrating when someone happens to have an idling cursor in a random position. Likewise, wouldn’t you be baffled if you needed to click a “Start Editing” button in Word or Google Docs? But it’s an interesting perspective to consider especially for users coming from Confluence, where editing has much more ceremony, and more generally for read-heavy wiki use case. In any case, it’s really the accidental edits at the root of the problem.

Like many other commenters, my biggest pain point is page load speed.

Re: UX Issues with Notion

#23

Post by gazelleeatslion »

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.

Re: UX Issues with Notion

#24

Post by jkelleyrtp »

blunte wrote: post #15

When I read people like or love Notion, I wish I could watch them use it. Obviously they are doing things very differently than I do... Typing latency while writing or editing a page is really high (bad). Every keypress you do, must be going through a long chain of "what can we interpret the user to be wanting ?" questions. Guess what!? The user is probably just trying to fucking type! Special features and options sh…

Everyone has their own experience, but I drive Notion entirely by keyboard - and I have a touchbar mac (with caps lock rebound to esc). Their search is also really good, so I never really find myself clicking around.

For all the small UX bits that aren’t 100%, there are a dozen other apps that can’t even get pictures, text, equations, and hierarchy right. Google Drive, org mode, or Roam are complete paradigm shifts away from an extremely consistent text editor that can embed anything. For every little quirk with icons, I’m reminded that while Notion might not be perfect, it’s still leagues beyond anything else in the space. And it shouldn’t even be hard.

Re: UX Issues with Notion

#25

Post by trinix912 »

turtles_ wrote: post #19
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.

Agreed, the slowness is especially painful on mobile, which is the exact opposite of what you need from a note taking tool. I use other tools on mobile and copy to notion later which is exactly as convenient as it sounds. I do agree with the thrust of the article too, although I don't find any one UX issue (beyond slowness) a deal-breaker, but together they're collectively a pretty frustrating experience.

Yeah, it's really slow on the mobile. I rarely ever use Notion for quick notes because it just takes so long to load.

Re: UX Issues with Notion

#26

Post by corytheboyd »

Agree with all points here.

This point isn’t Notion’s fault, but subpages are such a trap. I was thrown a product spec drafted with all the Notion bells and whistles, and the details I needed were sprinkled throughout these tiny sub pages. It was a bit ridiculous to navigate as a reader, going back to re-read something was next to impossible. Just put all relevant content in the same place! I somewhat blame Notion for encouraging this, but really it’s up to the author to communicate efficiently.

Re: UX Issues with Notion

#27

Post by bobbylarrybobby »

corytheboyd wrote: post #26

Agree with all points here. This point isn’t Notion’s fault, but subpages are such a trap. I was thrown a product spec drafted with all the Notion bells and whistles, and the details I needed were sprinkled throughout these tiny sub pages. It was a bit ridiculous to navigate as a reader, going back to re-read something was next to impossible. Just put all relevant content in the same place! I somewhat blame Notion fo…

What notion really needs is a way to expand subpages within the current page so that you don’t have to navigate to them explicitly.

Re: UX Issues with Notion

#28

Post by jitl »

turtles_ wrote: post #19
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.

Agreed, the slowness is especially painful on mobile, which is the exact opposite of what you need from a note taking tool. I use other tools on mobile and copy to notion later which is exactly as convenient as it sounds. I do agree with the thrust of the article too, although I don't find any one UX issue (beyond slowness) a deal-breaker, but together they're collectively a pretty frustrating experience.

(I work at Notion)

The mobile situation was much worse a year ago. We made big start time improvements by removing React Native and rebuilding our caching layer, but we still have a long way to go to beat Apple Notes. Using the Notion widget on iOS can really help with quick access for grocery lists.

On Android devices the situation is still not usable.

Re: UX Issues with Notion

#29

Post by corytheboyd »

bobbylarrybobby wrote: post #27
corytheboyd wrote: post #26

Agree with all points here. This point isn’t Notion’s fault, but subpages are such a trap. I was thrown a product spec drafted with all the Notion bells and whistles, and the details I needed were sprinkled throughout these tiny sub pages. It was a bit ridiculous to navigate as a reader, going back to re-read something was next to impossible. Just put all relevant content in the same place! I somewhat blame Notion fo…

What notion really needs is a way to expand subpages within the current page so that you don’t have to navigate to them explicitly.

Feels like we could eliminate the middleman here... :p
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