The Pitfalls of Low-Code and No-Code: A (Mild) Warning for Custom Software Development Enthusiasts

The appeal of no-code/low-code tools in undeniable. They empower users to manage data in a tailored way and at an affordable price. Their emergence is also a nod to a perennial weakness in the software development space: that software developers and designers simply cannot anticipate what everybody wants. So, let users develop software themselves.

I use Notion in a hub-and-spoke fashion, with Notion being the hub that houses my data, and spokes that are various other tools that I need to use and that I link to from Notion. I love it. Notion is essentially my master dashboard for work.

I took a bruising to get to this point, though. The hyper-control offered by low-code applications is tantalizing. But, I was reckless. It wasn't a disaster, mind you, but in hind sight I approached it in a way that lead to frustration and lost time.

The marketing for these types of apps trumpet low starting costs, full libraries of free templates, extensibility to other applications through the API, and the benefit of greater control of data. There is a vast pool of YouTubers out there who provide helpful tutorials about how to get started. Some of them in depth. All of that is great and I share links to some of my favorite YouTube tutorials below.

I was hooked and off and running in no time. I created multiple databases, one for people, another for organizations, another for projects and tasks, and yet another for a Wiki.

I used linked relations.

I dabbled with roll-ups.

I concatenated!

It got tricky when my brain was telling me: "Oh, wouldn't it be nice if..." I'd think to myself, yeah, let's try that. I would do something off script from any of the YouTube tutorials I watched and then run into a problem.

It's like the saxophone: very easy to get started, but very difficult to master.

I was constantly tweaking, instead of opening Notion to a dashboard that sang to me in soft, angelic tones, that was set up just the way I like it, with a prominent link to a blank page where I could just start writing.

I would see that something did not work as expected, get annoyed, and spend time trying to find a YouTube tutorial or documentation to help me. I would experiment. I would get super frustrated, delete all, and start over. Several hours later, the window of opportunity to write was gone.

This pattern repeated for a while.

When I initially created certain tags, they seemed appropriate, but later on, I realized their actual value was limited. This realization led to issues with sorting rules and filters that relied on these tags, which would inevitably fail after removing or modifying them.

Some functions, despite being labeled as low-code, still necessitated coding knowledge.

Furthermore, I encountered challenges with designing the user interface (UI). I wanted to be able to access certain pages on my smartphone while on the go. Achieving the desired display for these pages required a considerable amount of time.

The biggest obstacle of all, though, was that the 'product' that I created was unique to me. My Notion setup was and is highly customized pour moi. Which means, effectively, there's no technical support. Who can I call? Me.

"Hello, self! Is this a bad time?"

No one looks forward to spending four hours of your weekend triaging a bug. This situation happened frequently, and the complexity of low-code actually took me backwards.

Mind you, this is 100% on me. I waded into this thinking I know enough about data management to spin up a solid 'second brain.' I did not plan carefully and was impatient, diving headlong into the app.

My message to you is to start as simple as possible. Data accumulates quickly and in unanticipated ways. The dashboard I now use for my SA work is basic. A tag for the client, a tag for the solutioning activity, a field for entering time, and notes.

After a month, I was delighted. I could filter the data to see exactly how much time I spent doing an activity for a specific customer, what the next steps are, and what the outcomes were.

You could spend money on a coach. You could burn some paid time off. You could even take a course if you wish to create a complex system. But, you don't need any of that if you focus on four or five factors. You'll get the data management results you want, in much less time. And then iterate very slowly and deliberately.

Low-code/no-code may be a bit of a misnomer, but after all, they are excellent tools. Having gotten through a frustrating start-up period with Notion, not only does it help me do my job better, but I enjoy it.

Start slow.

YouTubers

These are of varying degrees of difficulty.

• Accounting: William Nutt, Learn Notion by Building an Accounting System
• Time-tracking: Nikki Davidson, Notion Time Tracking Walkthrough
• Dashboard building: August Bradley, Notion Dashboard Creation - Command Center (Beginner Level)