User and Task analysis for SETENTS
User Analysis
Our intended user base is people who wish to use their computers to take notes on presentations, or on readings. This mainly consists of college students taking notes in lecture.
- Age, Gender Culture: The age of our main target users, college students, ranges from 18 to 28. Users might be of any gender, and are from a culture that is proficient in English.
- Education: Users are mostly college educated.
- Physical limitations: Users do not have any physical limitations which would prevent them from taking notes on paper unassisted.
- Computer experience: Users are computer literate, and prefer computer-based solutions to their problems.
- Motivation: Users want to use notes to be able to remember what was taught during a lecture or other presentation, or as a summary of readings. Users might only take notes when such a summary is not otherwise readily available: one student does not take notes when she knows that PowerPoint slides will be made available online. Users want to be able to easily search their notes, and share them with others. One student who currently takes notes on paper frequently shares notes with students who did not attend lecture, but must scan the notes to make a copy; she would like to be able to share notes more easily. Users would like the ability to revisit parts of the presentation that they missed, although for the most part they do not want recordings of the entire presentation, since reviewing them would take too much time. Users would like to be able to quickly identify important sections of their notes when they are reviewing them: equations which are necessary to complete a pset, for instance.
- Domain experience: All of our users have taken notes in the past, and would take notes if our software did not exist.
- Application experience: All users have experience taking notes on paper, and most have taken notes on a computer as well. Users mentioned using applications such as Word, basic text editors, and online solutions such as google docs to take their notes. Use of specialized note-taking software such as OneNote was less common, perhaps due to its cost and limited platform availability.
- Work environment and other social context: Most of our users will be students in a lecture hall or classroom. Users might also be taking notes in other contexts, for instance during a meeting, or a presentation at a conference. In most cases, many people will be using laptops. However one student (in course 10) said that most of the students in her lectures take notes by hand, and although laptop use is not prohibited, she might feel uncomfortable being the only one in a room using a computer to take her notes.
- 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
There 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.
Why is the task being done? 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.
What does the user need to know of have before doing the task? The user will need to spend some time becoming familiar with the features of the note taking application. While the basic text editor will be familiar with anyone who has used a text editor before, getting used to some of the application's more advanced features will take some time.
Where is the task performed? The user will perform the note-taking task while in class. As the lecturer is talking and writing on the blackboard, the user will be entering and formatting text.
What is the environment like? Students who are taking notes in class are typically rushed and trying to write down a lot of information without much time for processing it. This environment can be stressful, but hopefully some stress can be eliminated if the user can type notes more quickly than he or she would write them by hand, allowing more time for thinking about the material.
How often is the task performed? A typical college student will probably have 8-10 hours of lecture a week, and he or she will likely be taking notes during all of this time. The task is performed almost daily for usually an hour or more.
What are its time or resource constraints? The time spent on this task is limited by the length of lecture and also the speed at which the lecture material is given. The faster the material is presented, the more constrained the time to take notes will be.
How is the task learned? The application will involve a lot of learning-by-doing, and with so much time spent taking notes every week, the user will likely become adept at using it within a few days. The documentation for the application will also be helpful by showing the user how to accomplish certain parts of the task.
What can go wrong? If the application is slow to use, the user might fall behind the lecture material and miss a lot of important information. If the note taking features are slower than taking notes by hand, users will not be satisfied and will probably not use the application.
Who else is involved in the task?
Inserting/Drawing diagrams
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) as a reason for using pen and paper instead of computer software.
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.
What does the user need to know or have before doing the task?
The user needs to have a rough idea of the scale of the diagram and the amount of space and detail that will be necessary. The user also needs to understand what diagramming tools are available (e.g. shapes, drawing tools, resizing and moving capabilities), otherwise it may not be possible for him/her to draw particular types of diagrams.
Where is the task performed?
Diagramming will generally take place during class on a laptop. The user will be sitting down, and will likely have limited desk space around his/her computer. It is possible that a user may retroactively add diagrams to notes after the lecture is over, but this is much less likely.
What is the environment like?
The environment is a classroom: 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 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.
What are its time or resource constraints?
There is a very tight time constraint on drawing/inserting diagrams into the notes - the user must be able to do so at least as fast as the diagram can be drawn on a chalkboard (or faster if the lecturer is using a slideshow). There are cognitive constraints on the task as well: it must be easy enough for the user to continue to comprehend the material. The user is also resource constrained in terms of input devices - the user cannot be expected to carry around large items such as Wacom tablets or scanners.
How is the task learned?
Diagram drawing must be learnable primarily by trying it, although there may be certain shortcuts or efficiency improvements to be learned by watching other students. Since all of the students will be drawing the same diagrams, it is possible for a user to learn by watching other students in the same class drawing the same thing.
What can go wrong?
Some common exceptions might include the user accidentally drawing incorrect shapes, or the size/shape of the desired diagram changing (e.g. as the lecturer expands or erases things on the chalkboard).
Who else is involved in the task?
The task will be performed individually.
Reviewing/editing past notes
Problem: Notes are mostly used as a tool to help users recall things they learned in a presentation, lecture, or reading. In order to be useful, it must be easy to go back and review notes that a user has already taken. Furthermore, if notes are erroneous or become outdated, it's important to be able to fix them.
Why do the task? Users might need to revisit their notes for two reasons: either to re-read their notes in order to recall or review the information contained in them, or to modify their notes in order to correct errors or add new information.
What does the user need to know or have? In order to do either of these tasks, the user must have the notes they wish to review or revise readily available. If the user is adding new information to the notes, they must have all of the information they are adding at hand. They must also be able to physically insert the information: simple with digital documents, but this might require inserting pages or crossing out text for paper notes. As for reviewing, if a user is looking for certain information in the notes instead of re-reading everything, the user must know how to identify the thing they are looking for. An example might be a user who is looking for an equation that's needed to solve a pset problem: if equations are easy to pick out from the surrounding notes, this task will be much more efficient. Search capabilities in general make computer notes more suited for review than paper notes, as do organizational concepts such as tags and folder hierarchies that would be difficult to replicate for people whose system involves one notebook per class, for instance.
Where is the task performed? This task might be performed anywhere, although it might be more likely to be performed in areas used for studying, such as a student's dorm room desk, or a library. Reviewing notes on a computer or on paper would not be problematic in either situation. However, there are situations where it might be difficult to spread out a lot of paper notes for review. Likewise, there are situations where you might not be able to access notes taken on a computer. Any notes stored online obviously require an internet connection, for example. Neither of these situations should apply to common cases.
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 used.
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.
What can go wrong? Modification of existing notes has the same pitfalls as creating new notes. Review of notes will not be successful if it is impossible to find the parts of the notes you wish to review.
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.