Notepals: Lightweight Note Taking by the Group, for the Group

• Main Authors: Davis, Richard C., Brotherton, Jason A., Landay, James A., Price, Morgan N., Schilit, Bill N.
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Institutional Knowledge at Singapore Management University 1998
• Subjects: Computer Sciences
• Online Access: https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/sis_research_smu/2; https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1001&context=sis_research_smu
• Institution: Singapore Management University

NotePals is an ink-based, collaborative note taking application that runs on personal digital assistants (PDAs). Meeting participants write notes in their own handwriting on a PDA. These notes are shared with other participants by synchronizing later with a shared note repository. NotePals is distinguished by its lightweight process, interface, and hardware. This paper describes the design and implementation of NotePals, its web-based note repository, and the results of an informal user study. The results indicate that taking notes on NotePals produces minutes that are comparable to paper in terms of speed and legibility, and the notes are far easier to share with others.