There’s a certain kind of headline that keeps showing up in my feed. By clicking the title of this article, I’m guessing you’ve already seen them. This week it was…

I replaced Notion and Obsidian with this snappy tool and it exceeded my expectations

My brain knows that it’s clickbait and by reading it I’m going to end up spiralling into yet another world of technological pain, but I can’t help it. I’m an absolute sucker for them. These writers don’t just know what I want - they know what I need. I need new technology. I need to believe I’m ahead of the curve, surfing productivity waves while others are still inflating their armbands. They seek out my most base desires as a geek. They excite me.

Maybe it’s because I’m a Gen X geek. I grew up on three terrestrial channels that shut down at midnight, with a thousand 24/7 channels just around the corner. Privacy to talk to my girlfriend meant stretching the phone cable into a cupboard. And the bright lights and loud pew-pews of the arcade were slowly being piped into bedrooms via rubber-keyed computers and primitive consoles. Change was constant. Technological growth was exponential, and I wanted to be a part of it.

So my entire life has been a constant fight of “must adopt” technologies. I was always the first. The first of my friends to move from a BMX to a computer. The first to study Computer Science. The first to beg my school for computer related work experience. I even campaigned at university for my electronics course to allow a computer programmed dissertation. I was the first of my friends on the internet. The first to develop web pages. And the first to buy all my Christmas presents on this new-fangled site called “Amazon” (which incidentally everyone teased me for). I even mortified my wife when we married in 2004, by insisting that we were the first couple in our friendship group to have an online gift list. A move that did not go down particularly well with my technophobic in-laws.

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So now, when I see a headline like “I tried this new browser and it’s amazing”, I’m immediately triggered. The addict in me starts sniffing out a new fix.

But when reading an article about swapping Obsidian and Notion for yet another new tool, I rarely stop to think that last month it was...

I moved from Google docs to Notion and it doubled my productivity

And the month before that..

Why I’ll never use Notes again, now that I’ve found Obsidian

It’s the same breathless cycle, repeated monthly with a new logo. Like musical chairs for note-taking. Except nobody’s sitting down, and everyone seems faintly exhausted.

A few months ago, I fell for it again. I moved half my life into Notion. I’d seen the screenshots. I wanted to be That Person - the one with the beautiful dashboard, the linked databases and the synced calendars.

Ever since I’ve spent hours setting up dashboards, fiddling with icons, watching tutorials, trying to make it all feel intuitive.

And it almost has. But the truth is, I’ve barely scratched the surface and yet now I’m already considering cheating on it with a cheap harlot younger model.

This is the part the articles rarely mention - the messy in-between. The hours lost to rearranging building blocks and migrating data. The nagging voice that says, “Keep going, this time it’s going to be the one”.

Do it.

You know you want to.

Just one more. It’s going to feel good.

But here’s the thing: it never is The One, and it never entirely feels amazing. At least, not for very long anyway. Almost always I end up spiralling into a world of Google searches that are something like “How can I use xx tool with xx tool”. Which, predictably, leads to a world of hacks and add-ons.

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The truth is, the tool is just a tool. If your ideas are a mess, no interface will magic them into order. If your focus is scattered, no productivity hack will glue it together. And if your life is in flux - changing jobs, changing priorities - your system will wobble. And that’s okay.

I’m still using Notion. Sort of. I haven’t found anything better yet. But I’m also trying very hard not to look. Because I’ve stopped believing that the next tool will change my life. Not until I’ve taken the time to actually learn how I work.

I need to figure out what I need - not what someone on Substack says I should want. What helps, what gets in my way, and what it is that I’m really seeking. And maybe this time even stick with something long enough to know for sure that it’s not the right tool.

But of course, that kind of headline doesn’t get many clicks.

I stuck with a tool I didn’t fully understand, and eventually it kind of made sense.

Not quite the same ring to it.

I’d love to hear from you in the comments if you too have a new technology addiction. Do you fall headfirst into every new tool that promises salvation? Do you succumb to your dirtiest digital desires the moment a slutty new app flashes its ankles?

Tell me I’m not alone.

We spend hours getting this stuff right.

Making sure everything works for keyboard users. Keeping page weight low. Locking down privacy settings so personal data doesn’t spill all over the place. Writing content that’s actually… well, readable. It all takes time, thought, compromise.

And then we bury it like a shameful secret.

Accessibility controls? Tucked away in some half-visible corner.
Security cues? Reduced to a padlock no one notices.
Green credentials? Maybe a badge, maybe a sentence in the footer.

Strange, isn’t it? The parts of our work that arguably matter most - the ones rooted in care, responsibility, ethics - end up hidden like admin. Something we have to do, but wouldn’t want to draw attention to.

We just sort of… whisper it. As if being respectful to people - their time, their choices, their needs - is something to keep quiet about.

But what if it wasn’t?

We’ve built up this odd digital culture where the most meaningful things are the least visible.

Accessibility controls - when they exist - are often buried in settings menus. Sustainability gets a token mention in a blog post. Security? We rarely talk about it unless something breaks. If it’s working, it disappears.

We’ve been conditioned to treat these things as chores. Necessary, sure - but not worthy of attention. Not exciting. Not beautiful.

And yet… they’re good. They protect people. Include people. Respect people. And they’re the result of deliberate, thoughtful choices - usually made quietly, without much thanks.

It’s odd. We celebrate flashy transitions and clever branding tweaks, but barely mention the work that keeps users safe, included, informed. The stuff that actually matters gets left out of the case studies. Too dull, apparently.

But it’s not dull. It’s just not showy.

And maybe that’s the problem.

There’s a quiet beauty in ethical UX that rarely gets acknowledged. The kind that earns trust through clarity. Interfaces that don’t manipulate. Buttons that do what they say. Forms that don’t try to trick you.

It’s not just about what’s not there - no dark patterns, no fake urgency, no guilt-trip popups. It’s about what is there: kindness, honesty, restraint. A kind of digital decency.

And when it’s done well, you feel it. You might not notice straight away, but it shows up in how calm the experience feels. How much easier it is to breathe. To focus. To leave a page without feeling nudged into the wrong decision. To read something without being shouted at by autoplaying videos and in-your-face advertising.

We’ve been told that ethics and creativity sit on opposite ends of a spectrum - as if you can be responsible or exciting, but not both. But that’s nonsense. Ethical design isn’t the opposite of good design. It is good design. It’s design that actually gives a damn.

And we should be showing it off. Not just meeting a standard and moving on, but treating it like craft. Like something to be proud of. If we’re building with care, why are we hiding that care?

Dark patterns are still everywhere - dressed up as clever UX, when really they’re just manipulative. And yet they get celebrated. They boost metrics. They make it into case studies with a wink and a nudge, as if being slightly dishonest is just part of the game.

But what if we called that out more often? Not with outrage - just quiet confidence. This isn’t how we do things. And more importantly: Look how good it can be when we don’t.

Imagine a project that leads with its ethics - not as a footnote, but part of the aesthetic. Big, clear buttons. Opt-ins that actually feel optional. Sustainability stats upfront. A privacy policy that doesn’t read like a trap.

Not as a gimmick. Not for applause. Just… because it’s better. More honest. More human. More trustworthy.

We talk so much about user-centred design, and then forget to show any actual respect to the user.

But the strange part is, no one’s stopping us.

There’s no rule that says accessibility has to be hidden. No law that says sustainability must be framed as sacrifice. And yet we treat all of it like spinach - good for you, sure, but not what you’d put on the homepage.

Why?

Part of it’s habit. We’ve spent years equating sleekness with sophistication, and anything that slows things down - or adds friction - as failure. We’re taught to see ethics as limits, not design opportunities.

And part of it, if we’re honest, is fear. Fear of seeming too earnest. Too basic. Fear that if we strip out the tricks, the work won’t hold up.

So we chase novelty. We cram in features no one asked for. We obsess over polish and pace. And we hide the parts that deserve to be seen.

Because they’re not glossy. Because they don’t win awards. Because no one ever got promoted for saying, “Actually, I think we should make that plainer and kinder.”

But maybe they should have.

Maybe we need a new kind of aspiration.

Not just to build things that work, or things that wow - but things that care. Things that wear their ethics openly, without apology. That say: we thought about you when we made this. We tried to do the right thing, even if you never notice

Written by Stu Collett – web veteran & recovering perfectionist.
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In the cultural sector, digital still too often gets treated like a side dish - useful, necessary even, but never the main event. Something to quietly “make available online” after the real thing’s done. The mindset is archival, not experiential - a focus on what’s there rather than how it feels to engage with it. And that shows.

The result? Clean, well-behaved virtual tours. Digitised artefacts in tasteful grids. Video panels explaining context in gentle, reassuring tones. Technically sound. Emotionally vacant.

We talk about digital like it’s a limitation.

“We can’t quite recreate the atmosphere.”
“It’s hard to replicate the magic of being there.”
“We’ve translated the exhibition as best we can.”

But here’s the thing: the web isn’t a translation tool. It’s not a photocopier. It’s a medium in its own right - rich, layered, sensory in its own way. The problem isn’t that digital lacks the power to move people. The problem is we rarely give it permission to.

Part of that comes down to legacy thinking. Many institutions still see digital as a broadcast tool - a way to extend visibility, distribute information, log the archive. It’s not there to hold meaning. It’s not trusted to carry complexity. In some places, it’s barely trusted at all.

And so the real decisions - the creative risks, the emotional moments, the ideas that might raise an eyebrow - those tend to stay in the room. In the gallery. On the stage. Digital picks up the leftovers. A documentation pass. A backup.

Some of that comes from fear. Once something’s online, it’s permanent, right? It can be shared, misquoted, screenshotted. And that makes people cautious. But caution is no excuse for making something dull. A grid of objects with polite captions might be safe, but it’s not memorable. It’s not moving. And if we’ve decided digital should only ever be neutral and tidy, then we’ve misunderstood its potential entirely.

Prior to my career in web, I spent over a decade working as a live sound engineer - mostly for music, but often in crossover spaces too. Touring theatre productions, temporary exhibitions, private art installations - places where the lighting and audio were just as carefully tuned as the artwork. These weren’t just technical gigs. They were exercises in atmosphere. Sometimes it was subtle: a low hum under a lighting shift, a barely audible loop in an installation room. Other times it was bolder - audio that swelled, startled, echoed, unsettled.

We didn’t think of these things as “content”. They were part of the architecture. You didn’t watch them. You absorbed them.

And that’s what I keep coming back to when I see digital projects that still treat the web as a second-tier format. Culture doesn’t need to be “translated” for digital. It needs to be reimagined.

This doesn’t mean VR headsets and interactive 3D models for every exhibition. Sometimes the most powerful digital experiences are the simplest - a single story told well, a moment of silence designed in. But they only happen when we think with the medium - not around it.

If you start with “how do we get this online?”, you’ll likely end up with something flat.
If you start with “how might someone feel when they encounter this?”, you might get something worth staying for.

And maybe that’s the shift that needs to happen. Not just better tools, or better funding - but better instincts. A move away from digital as documentation, and toward digital as encounter. Not just a place to store meaning, but a place to create it.

The best digital work I’ve seen lately didn’t ask for permission. It led with feeling. It invited risk. That’s the work I want to see more of - and be part of.

Because the web isn’t holding us back. We are.

Written by Stu Collett – web veteran & recovering perfectionist.
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I clicked through three different cultural websites last week – and honestly, I couldn’t tell you which was which. Same layout. Same nav. Same polite welcome message in 16px grey. A homepage carousel shuffling through upcoming events, a big hero banner with barely enough contrast, and maybe – if they were feeling wild – an animated gradient on the newsletter signup.

Somewhere along the way, we streamlined our way into a kind of polite digital beige.

And to be fair, I get it. Templates make things quicker. Frameworks keep things consistent. Design systems reduce risk. These are sensible things. Responsible, even. Especially if you’re working in the public sector, or with tight budgets, or juggling five stakeholders and a CMS that’s allergic to creativity.

But still. I miss the weirdness.

I’m not talking about spinning logos and Comic Sans footers (although, let’s be honest, a few of those old sites were oddly joyful). I’m talking about a certain... texture. Personality. That feeling you’d get from stumbling across a page that didn’t quite behave, but made you smile anyway. Where someone clearly tried something. Even if it broke a bit in Netscape.

Now, so many digital experiences – especially the worthy ones – feel like they’ve been pressed from the same mould. Accessible. Responsive. Usable. But somehow lacking presence. No quirks, no surprises, no real sense of the people behind the pixels.

It’s not that standardisation is bad. Quite the opposite – shared patterns and practices help level the playing field. Accessibility especially benefits from that consistency, and it’s more achievable than ever. Performance can be baked in from the start. And design systems can empower teams instead of boxing them in – when done well.
But accessibility doesn’t mean things have to be boring. You can still be creative – and still be inclusive.

But I do worry that in chasing best practice, we’ve started filtering out personality by default. Because it’s safer. Less effort. Less debate. More “efficient.”

What gets lost in that trade is subtle but cumulative. Interfaces that feel sterile. Content that’s polite but bloodless. A digital presence that ticks all the right boxes but doesn’t leave a mark.

Maybe it’s time we brought back a bit of bravery.

Not wholesale reinvention – no one’s asking for dancing hamsters to make a comeback. But small things. A bolder colour choice. A playful heading. A layout that breaks rhythm on purpose. Moments of warmth or mischief or humanity that remind you this wasn’t made by a committee of robots.

There’s still room for originality, even inside a framework. There’s still space for craft, even on a deadline. It just takes a team that values it – or maybe just someone brave enough to ask “does it have to look like this?”

Written by Stu Collett – web veteran & recovering perfectionist.
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We spend a lot of time talking about the future of the web - and most of the time, it’s about speed. Faster load times. Faster transactions. Faster ways to squeeze a few more minutes from our overstretched lives. Speed has become the drumbeat behind every new tool, every keynote, every project launch.

Speed equals progress. Right?

Except... I’m not sure that's the future we actually need. Or even really want.

When I think about the web I want my daughter to grow up with, I don't picture her racing through websites that anticipate her every click and decision before she's had time to think. I picture her having time to think. To read. To wander a little. To get lost, in a good way. To feel safe enough to be curious.

Maybe even - and it sounds almost radical to say it out loud - to feel seen as a human being rather than a datapoint.

Because here's the uncomfortable truth: faster often means more extractive. More frantic. Less space for care, for accessibility, for those slower, quieter needs that don't tend to fit into quarterly KPIs. It's not just that we move quickly - it's that we stop noticing who gets left behind.

Somewhere along the way, "progress" became synonymous with shaving milliseconds off page loads and automating human moments out of existence. Signing up. Checking out. Logging in. Logging out. Faster, faster, faster.

But what are we actually rushing towards? And who benefits from that speed? It's not always the users. It’s not always us.

When we optimise everything for velocity, we risk building digital spaces that are technically impressive but emotionally empty. Efficient but joyless. Imposing, even. Spaces that demand our attention without earning it, that push us to react before we've had a chance to feel.

And it’s not sustainable, either. The relentless pursuit of speed feeds bigger, hungrier systems - ones that consume more data, more energy, more of our mental bandwidth. It asks us to be constantly available, constantly adaptable, constantly "on."

The future I want to help build is one where kindness is baked in, not bolted on as a reluctant accessibility statement or a post-hoc ethical review.

Websites and services that are thoughtful as much as they are efficient. Where friction isn’t always seen as a flaw, but sometimes as a deliberate invitation to pause. To reflect. To properly engage.

Not slower for the sake of it - but slower where it matters.

Where a service takes an extra beat to explain itself clearly, rather than railroading you through assumptions. Where content is designed for understanding, not just for SEO. Where the humans behind the technology actually acknowledge the humans using it.

Because technology doesn't have to be a race. It can be a conversation. It can be a craft. It can be a community.

Maybe the real next frontier isn't a faster web at all. Perhaps it's a kinder one.

Written by Stu Collett – web veteran & recovering perfectionist.
Enjoying The Byte Stuff? You can subscribe for free to get future posts by email – no spam, no pressure, just occasional digital reflections.

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