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- Relationships and communication patterns with other people: During the actual note-taking process, people tend to be focused on the presentation or reading that is the subject of their notes, so they are not interacting with those around them. People might wish to share notes once they're done, for instance with friends who couldn't (or didn't) go to class on a particular day.
Task Analysis
why is the task being done
what does the user need to know of have before doing the task
where is the task performed
what is the environment like
how often is the task performed
what are tis time or resource constraints
how is the task learned
what can go wrong
who else is involved in the taskThere are three main tasks that students/users perform with their notes. First, they must be able to enter basic text notes during a lecture or presentation. Second, they must be able to draw or insert diagrams into their notes in real-time. Third, they must be able to easily review and correct notes they have taken.
Typing text notes
Problem: Taking notes on paper leads to several problems -- most notably the fact that multiple notebooks are needed to organize notes from multiple subjects. For many computer users, typing is actually faster than writing by hand, so typing notes may prevent a user from falling behind the lecturer, especially if the user wants to take notes on things that are said and not written. Users of text editing software have also complained about formatting text for notes, especially outline formats with bullet points, and integrating source code into text notes (in programming classes) while formatting the code nicely.
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Problem: One of the most challenging and frustrating parts of taking notes on a computer is trying to integrate diagrams or drawings from class into notes in a text editor. Sometimes a particular chart or graph is essential to the understanding of the notes, so the difficulty causes many note takers to stick with paper and pen instead of dealing with this issue. One interviewee used a highly efficient text editor (vim) to take notes, but found it difficult to incorporate drawings, often resorting to using his cellphone camera to take a picture of the board, or skipping the diagram entirely. The others mentioned the difficulty of drawing diagrams (such as molecule shapes) with current software as a reason for using pen and paper instead of a computer.
Why is the task being done?
In order to make computerized note-taking feasible, the user must be able to easily record the diagrams that are being shown on slides or drawn on the chalkboard. Often the diagrams convey information (relationships, physical structure, etc) that cannot easily be recorded purely textually.
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What is the environment like?
The environment is a classroom - quiet: quiet; sometimes stressful, depending on the speed of lecture and difficulty of material.
How often is the task performed?
The task in general is performed daily throughout a semester. In finer detail, users will insert and draw diagrams multiple times in most lectures, and will generally have multiple lectures per day. All 3 of the students interviewed cited the frequency of drawing diagrams as a reason against taking notes on computers with current software, as it was too tedious.
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How often is the task performed? The frequency with which existing notes are modified would depend on the subject of the notes: for instance, notes on a current event might be updated to reflect new developments, whereas notes on a historical event are unlikely to be modified as much. Review of notes tends to happen in specific situations such as looking up information that is needed for a pset, or reviewing all notes in preparation for a test.
What are the time or resource constraints? The logistics of reviewing notes (locating notes, locating the relevant section in the notes) should not add much to the time necessary for absorbing the information itself. Students told us that they already do not allocate sufficient time to study for tests, so any solution that added unnecessary overhead would not be favoredused.
How is the task learned? On paper, reviewing and modifying notes is learned intuitively, or by watching others at an early age. On a computer, the tools necessary to review or modify notes should be easy to learn from exploring the interface, or from familiarity with external software metaphors.
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Who else is involved in the task? People might wish to review and/or modify notes taken by others. For the most part, though, only one user is involved.