Just The Right Amount Of Nodes

Tracing a road is simple. Use the Draw (A) tool in JOSM or the Line tool in iD and draw the road following its course. The trick is to use the right amount of nodes to describe a way. Too few make the road appear very jagged. Too many are unnecessary data and make the road hard to edit later.

The first example was traced with too few nodes, it is too jagged, the second example was traced with too many nodes adding redundant information, the last one is traced right.