Quiet Tools

The best tools I own are quiet. They do one thing, they do it the same way every time, and then they get out of the way. They do not greet me. They do not celebrate my streak. They do not ask how I am feeling about my productivity.

Loud software

A lot of modern software is loud. It onboards you with a tour. It nudges you with notifications. It gamifies the thing you came to do until the thing itself is buried under confetti. Loud software optimizes for engagement, and engagement is not the same as usefulness — often it is the opposite.

The case for quiet

A quiet tool respects that you have somewhere to be. grep does not have a streak. cat does not want to re-engage you. They are useful precisely because they assume you know what you want and are busy doing it.

I try to build quiet tools. It means saying no to features that would make a demo more impressive but a daily user more tired. It means the highest compliment is not “I love using this” but “I forgot it was there.”

That is the goal: software you forget is there, because it never gave you a reason to think about it.