Good Tool Is a Tool You Don't Even Notice
Fleeting- see,
what makes a good tool (very opinionated).
In my mind, there are at least 2 properties to measure about a tool:
- how well it fulfils its purpose,
- how easy it is to use.
A hammer, for instance, fits very well the purpose of knocking a nail. But, depending on how easy it is to hold or how heavy it is, it might not be easy to use.
I think a good tool must outreach one threshold for each aspect.
- it must fulfil its purpose to as to make the job done.
- it must be easy to use so that you don’t even notice it.
Both are totally subjective and one should always decide what tool to choose based on the subjective feeling about the tool.
When I discuss with people about tools, the discussion is often about whether or not the tool fulfils the need and unfortunately not about whether the tools is easy to use. That totally makes sense because the subjective ease is not something you can easily describe, but I feel like it makes the conversation almost pointless.
Also, a good tool might take some time to learn. Here, I suppose you used the tool long enough to feel like you are not still learning it but actually using it.
Notes linking here
- can a collaborative tool be efficient?
- can do it vs it is easy to do it
- good tool is a nudge
- pkms vs ckms
- start automations by manually doing
- tool works for you, you don’t work for the tool
- what makes a good ihm