Notion.io is my new favorite

Posted by nathanb
Aug 16, 2018 at 06:01 PM

nathanb wrote:

>
>Paul Korm wrote:
> >>@nathanb wrote
>>>Anyone here tried this?
>>
>>These threads might be interesting
>>
>>https://www.outlinersoftware.com/topics/viewt/6196/0/notionso
>>
>>https://www.outlinersoftware.com/topics/viewt/8143/0/notionso-updated
>>
>>https://www.outlinersoftware.com/topics/viewt/7697/0/notion
>>
> >Thanks Paul! I really need to practice searching here more often. I’m
>too used to other forums organized like a directory. Sorry for the
>extra noise.

Just scanned through those threads. Spot-on in general. Without the database function that they introduced this year (April-ish) this is only a good candidate for users who just want simplicity for group-projects and light content. What the average user might call a ‘company wiki’ when it’s really just a user-editable web-site. rant

rant-over

I wouldn’t even consider using it without the database tables to help organize things. It’s way too easy to nest and transclude yourself into a big mess since it doesn’t have other global metadata to help keep everything herded. But once you start messing around with big page layouts and playing with how to embed things and apply structure via database in a free-form way…. Usually every app I use begs the question “I wish it could do this” then you change your workflow to live with that limit. The more I use Notion the better I get at designing out those walls and design the app to match my workflow instead of the other way around.

Notion’s target user is clearly casual and it’s super slick and pretty because of that. Hopefully enough of the ‘ooh shiny’ crowd will sign up for it to keep the platform going. It’s a lot like Excel’s usage, where 95% of users just make lists and basic sums with it. They don’t understand the quantum leap in capability that the equations/macros/programming can give them and they’ll never bother to explore that. It seems like Notion’s database feature is just like Excel’s power features…unappreciated by most but for those of us who can see the possibilities it’s a ‘holy crap!’ moment.

Maybe I’m just excited that FOR ONCE, a slick, ‘dumbed down’ cloud based app offers much deeper capability for more adventurous users instead of catering to the lowest-common denominator user. Microsoft has spent 11 years stripping OneNote down in the name of ‘usability’. They SHOULD have added this kind of Database functionality like Notion did years ago but they didn’t have the imagination. There’s a lot of depth for power users with this new breed of ‘make your own cloud database’ apps like Airtable, Notion, Quip,Coda, etc. Hopefully that marks a turning point where won’t have to constantly choose between ‘modern-but-simple’ and ‘classic-but-powerful’ when finding new homes for our data.