A tool can be modern, feature-rich, ergonomic… and still drain a team’s energy.
Complexity doesn’t appear on the interface.
It appears in use.
Most digital failures do not come from weak technology but from excessive cognitive load: too many choices, too many screens, too many steps disconnected from real work.
Diagnosing such tools requires observing four signals dashboards never show.
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Real execution time increases instead of decreasing
If a tool makes a task longer—even by seconds—it kills productivity.
Management won’t see it.
People who repeat the task 50 times a day will.
The field measures the truth.
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Teams bypass the system to go faster
Paper notes, screenshots, parallel chats—every bypass is a warning sign.
It means the tool:
• slows down
• overloads
• imposes a logic unrelated to reality
A bypassed digitalization is a rejected digitalization.
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Errors increase under pressure
A good tool protects under pressure.
A bad tool collapses when workload or speed rises.
If errors explode during peak periods, the issue isn’t human.
It’s operational design.
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Mental fatigue exceeds actual workload
A tool may “work” while exhausting its users through:
• too much information
• too many validations
• too many context switches
• too few stable cues
Technology is tiring when it demands more than it gives.
A tool succeeds when people use it without thinking.
It fails when people think more about the tool than the work.
Complexity kills adoption.
Simplicity creates performance.