What’s your NOTION on NOTION?
A product that facilitates quick websites.
In a world where recruiters barely have seconds to glance through your resume and portfolio, shouldn’t what you convey matter more than how much you can beautify it? Sure, nothing will come close to writing code and building a website, but if something essentially gets the job done just close enough to an actual code wouldn’t you want to try it?
Let us quickly go through this product, that has not only made life code free for starters, but has also done so effortlessly. We will look at what the product is, what are its upsides and downsides and how it plays as opposed to its competitors in the market.
Product: The notion app, is not only used for collecting your user research and manage design projects, but also for organizing your portfolios, pages, theses, articles and lets you publish all of this to the web in a hassle-free manner.
Competitors: WordPress, Dribble, Squarespace, PDF/Word, etc. There are traditional ways of building and hosting your website and portfolios here but it has a steep learning curve which is not very intuitive. In terms of innovation and features, there are lots of advantages that Notion has to offer above them. Nevertheless, that being said, all the competitors will also do a decent job of getting what we want, it’s just about the creativity tools, UI/UX and efforts in terms of time that really matters, which is where Notion takes the prize home.
Upsides for Notion:
Super Interactive: For all the designers and product managers out there and for everyone else, embedding prototypes and wireframes from Figma and Marvel couldn’t get easier. Without a single line of code, you can switch between pages, embed a ton of stuff, connect documents within each other and so much more. This becomes a great deal for people who want to avoid coding.
Export as you like: I like to call it this, because you can literally export the way you want to. For a neat little document, you have the option of going with pdf, for hosting this on your resume you can directly make it a website and you can also export it as an HTML and put it online.
C’est très facile: For people like me who will use the code part only if absolutely necessary, notion app is a boon in disguise. It will literally let you duplicate and loop as and when you want. When we cater our resumes according to job, why not do it with our portfolios too! Notion app will let you create extremely focused case studies and designs which is way more effective than having a generalized one.
Free Version: As far as I have used it, and to the length of work that a design case study or a product portfolio will require, this free version will let you do everything. Unlike other apps which need an upgrade, the notion app has a lot of features already incorporated in its basic version.
Downsides for Notion:
Offline seems off: The landing pages, embedded work, notes and a lot more becomes inaccessible when we switch to offline mode. It works decently if loaded with internet beforehand, but gets chaotic later. The offline mode basically makes data operation and visualization difficult.
Learning Curve: Despite being an extremely intuitive app, there are lots and lots of trivia in notion that requires time to understand and work on. Considering how much it can do, it takes time to get fully versed with it. That being said, its a very user friendly app and makes your day easier by the hour.
Final Verdict: I have spent a decent amount of time on this app, and I absolutely love it. It lets me host and compile all my work without getting into the technicality of coding. Although, a website which built through code will definitely give you way more options in terms of size, shape, font, color, and everything else. But for a super easy, fast and simple process, well, you all know whats my NOTION! :)
