The Author Pays James Thomas. 2026-10-08 

Heuristics for Working 

Visual Noise 

tl;dr - I am not reading this page of noise Emoji noise What draws the attention here? The link cards, right? @-list noise Link card noise Personal hatred: long raw URLs 

A Better Way First: key points Clear. Minimal decoration Optional thread for anyone who cares Just delete the distracting cards 

A “quick” reminder But no-one is reading this. 

A Better Way Clear call to action What to do if this matters to you Long but clear: Why, When, What, How. 

Source 

Reduce Visual Noise ● Useful order ● Consumable chunks ● Don’t clutter 

What Is It? 

Is This Really a List? 

Yes, it’s a List 

Is This Really a Table? ● Intuitive drag-and-drop functionality ○ ○ ○ Customisable: yes Cross-platform: no Can be rendered by all modern engines ● Real-time validation ○ Not cross-platform ● Integrate seamlessly with existing systems ○ ○ Uses standard comms API Is customisable to a limited extent ● Enhanced reporting capabilities ○ ○ Cross-platform: no Bundled logger has PHI detection ● Automated error handling ○ Same comms API as earlier 

Yes, it’s a Table The top-level bullets are features The lower-level bullets are attributes with values Feature Customisable X-Platform Intuitive drag-and-drop functionality Y N Enhanced reporting Y (limited) N API Compatible with modern render engines Automated error handling Bundled logger has PHI detection Standard comms Real-time validation Other N 

Ah. Now I See That was a Table Too 

But is Any Table the Right Table? And the other options? And the other options don’t? Two points in one bullet But is it obvious? Bullets waste valuable space Please just delete me 

No, There are Righter Tables One row per feature Identify the things we care about Cells with the same value for a row are obvious Simple decoration allows high-level comparison across options Empty cells show gaps in the modelling 

What Is It? ● Recognise the type ● Choose the right structure ● Format for understanding 

Friction 

Title disagrees with description Refers to related work but doesn’t link it Someone copypasted this and just changed the title I found the other ticket. But why should I have to? 

A Better Way Give context Left the ticket better for the next person What failure looks like when we try to re-enable. Example not description. Source 

There are a lot of stages YOWSA! There are also time dependencies. I want to follow our team process. There are multiple variables: status, assignee, flag. And this looks important but it’s after the table. Should I read it first? 

A Better Way Important first Still complicated but factors are explicit Colour helps to show relationships 

Show who needs to do what, and when and why 

Friction ● Contradiction ● Inconsistency ● Complexity 

Why Me? 

The cost/benefit decision ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● How often will it be read? Who will read it? What context will they have? What context can I share? How much time do I have? Whose time is more valuable? Is something needed now? What would be good enough If you’re doing it, maximise its value 

Summary 

In general, the author pays ● ● ● ● ● Important first Minimise noise Appropriate structure Format for understanding Avoid friction