[gravity13]

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

Likewise, wouldn't you be baffled if you opened up a wikipedia article and found you were automatically editing it, and now you need to worry about making an accident every time you visit the site because you had no intentions of editing content, instead just consuming it.

But that's just because people are using the product in different modalities.

Are you using Notion as more of a live editor, where the documents are often short lived and transactional in nature? Or are you using it as a sort of permanent knowledge base and history?

The reality of the situation is that each modality commands different designs, and Notion generally tries to solve for all of them with single-minded design principles.

I think there's a strange fallacy in our industry of UX design which dictates that your product should resolve to simple design decisions or become convoluted configurable behemoths driven by the unending deluge of ad hoc decisions from customer asks - like there's no middle ground. Some designer is hopping up and down in a fit going, "but the user doesn't understand MY design principles!"

I feel like "tech" has ultimately failed in this regard.

[polote]

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.

[bobbylarrybobby]

That Notion 1. Naturally embeds documents within other documents (and not within some containing folder) and 2. makes linking to other documents seamless, makes it a totally different beast from google docs

[porker]

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

[iamacyborg]

> I feel like "tech" has ultimately failed in this regard.

This is what happens when you start designing products for the lowest common denominator and weigh quantitative feedback above qualitative.