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249 points rpastuszak | 10 comments | | HN request time: 0.871s | source | bottom

Ensō is a writing tool that helps you enter a state of flow by separating writing from editing and thus making it harder for you to edit yourself - https://enso.sonnet.io/

After 6 years and 2 million words of daily writing I feel like I've learned enough to make Ensō simpler and more accessible.

Related thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38025073

1. smusamashah ◴[] No.44422640[source]
I dont know what Enso is. This page doesn't tell it in first few paragraphs. I wasn't to homepage of this website. That also mentions Enso but without a link. There is a link to roadmap but that doesn't answer this question either. Please describe what Enso is in few lines in a easily discoverable place.
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2. owebmaster ◴[] No.44422651[source]
Yeah the article is quite bad for the uninitiated but it seems that is how he talks to its own community. Looks like a text editor
3. ◴[] No.44422702[source]
4. xipho ◴[] No.44422764[source]
But yet I lurked longer than many of other product pages I land on to think about what might be going on thanks to the nature of graphics and the non-standard non-bootstrap template approach.

Sometimes providing TLDR means you are providing a way for people to instantly ignore you without further thought. Maybe there is a desire to engage people who think.

5. rpastuszak ◴[] No.44423019[source]
Author here: https://enso.sonnet.io

Thanks for the feedback, most of my usual readers know about Ensō and it seems I forgot to leave my little bubble when writing this post!

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6. gyomu ◴[] No.44423069[source]
This is an interesting one.

On one hand it’s hard to disagree with the statement “it should be clear what your product does in a single glance”. In fact there’s a whole meta that’s been developed around this, with well established common wisdom on how to structure your landing page to quickly frame value to prospective users, call them to action, etc.

On the other hand it’s kind of fun to stumble upon something and feel like you missed the beginning of the conversation, and to figure things out piece by piece based on context.

I was also confused when loading this website but it led me to trying the app and it was kind of fun.

Sometimes the most optimized, clearest path isn’t necessarily the preferable one.

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7. tomhow ◴[] No.44423163[source]
We added that subheading text from your website to the text of this post, to make it easier for people to understand what it is.

If you want it changed further, you're welcome to email us at hn@ycombinator.com.

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8. dr_kretyn ◴[] No.44423389[source]
Same. I even came to comments to see if anyone has actually written what this is. And, unfortunately, still little. Most people just comment "great stuff". After a few minutes I'm still to learn what this thing is and why does anyone care that it's in beta public.
9. rpastuszak ◴[] No.44423892{3}[source]
It looks great, thank you.
10. rpastuszak ◴[] No.44424000[source]
> Sometimes the most optimized, clearest path isn’t necessarily the preferable one.

Untested is my playground/a place where I "work with the garage door up", so generally I allow myself for more flexibility, especially since this post is more of a devlog entry than a one-glance product page (that would be https://enso.sonnet.io). That said, I had a break from writing, so ended up putting too much content in one place, which made it harder to edit.

What's going to happen in the next few months is this: I'll post more dev/design-log style posts on untested.sonnet.io, then extract some of this information into the product page.

I'm glad that you had some fun with the app!