Recently I received an iPhone as a gift, and I was ecstatic!  The phone is spectacular in many aspects.  Playing music, video, browsing the web, photos is hands down the best I can ever imagine on a phone or a personal device.  Despite all the excitement, like any early technology, it needs work in certain areas.  I have found that productivity tools, both native and third party fall within this area. One of them is in the area of notes, something to jot down and keep track of pieces of information. 

Rather than jumping into what's out there and what features each of them have, since this is a blog about user interface design for web entrepreneurs and developers, I wanted to start off by first evaluating the needs of notes.  At the heart of every great UI design is a keen understanding of users' needs.  So, Let's dive in:

Scenarios of Notes

First of all, what are some common scenario that I or anyone else might need notes?

• List of things to buy at grocery store
• List of books to check out at a bookstore
• List of things to bring for vacation
• Notes about what to write about on a blog
• Basic log of something: mileage, exercise, simple expenses
  
• A few keyword notes to help remember points from a presentation
• etc.
  

Summary of Scenarios

By looking at the above scenarios, you can generalize that the purpose of having notes is to keep a list of information for a later use whether it's to buy something, write something up, make a decision, etc.  Yes, this seems very obvious, but please bear with me.

Goal

Why is it that we use notes?  Alan Cooper in his book About Face suggests we need to go beyond features and consider human goals for making successful products.  When human goals are central to product development, innovation and sustainable competitive advantage become present in products. 

A simple answer to why we use notes might be: "Well if I don't use notes, I would forget things and waste a lot of time when we need to get things done." 

Simply stated: We take notes to increase productivity - so we can retain and access information at the right time and at the right place. Wouldn't you agree that conversely, not having notes when you need them would decrease productivity?

Let's see some ways we have used notes historically and as of recent.

Modeling Activities

Looking at how people currently perform a particular activity is where it gets interesting and another way that we can discover unmet needs.  What are existing workflows for this need?  What have we done historically?

Since the advent of paper and still in many cases:
(Activity 1) Write notes on paper- Jot down notes and bring it with us for when it's needed.  Here are some problems with this method, as we all know:

• Easy to lose - a piece of paper can be hard to track down
• Information is not easily transferrable - you would have to retype it electronically if you want to store it digitally and use it in other forms

Since the advent of computers, where once information is entered electronically it can be used in other forms:
(Activity 2) Gather information on the computer and print it when necessary.  Some problems here are:

• Requires for you to be prepared in advance - Information must be printed beforehand and carried with us when we need it. 
  
• Printer dependent - There may not always be a printer available when we need one
  
• Wastes Paper - Printers don't use scraps of paper or post it notes either
  

Since the advent of PDA's and smart phones
(Activity 3) Gather information on your computer OR your smart device and synchronize the information between the two machines.  Synchronization between the computer and device has solved many problems with the original productivity goal: get information stored somewhere, access it almost anywhere.  The minor problems ith this activity have been:

• Difficulty in inputting new information into the mobile device - Whether it's an on-screen or qwerty keyboard on the device or handwriting on a  screen with a stylus, it isn't as easy as typing on a full keyboard or writing using a pen
• Need to have the smart device with you at all times - This hasn't been as much of an issue once these smart devices have been better integrated into our phones.  Our phones are within our reach most of the time.
  

Goal Drivers

We now have scenarios, models of current activities, and an overarching goal.  From all of the above information, how can we drill down on the overarching goal and drive the design successfully?

Goal: Increase productivity: Retain and access information at the right time and at the right place. If we drill down on this goal we have factors such as:

1. Speed of entry - Whether it's writing, typing on a full keyboard, or a keyboard on a device, we want to get the information in as quickly as possible
2. Information is easily accessible - When you want to use it, you want information immediately
3. Dependable Record Keeping - Once the information is entered you want it to be in a form that isn't lost easily
4. Transferable - You want to be able to use the information in other forms
   

Needs Review Summary

Do the above goal drivers seem absolutely obvious to you? Yes it seems quite obvious.  But looking at the iPhone notes applications that are currently available, are these goal drivers being met?  NO.  Because of new technology such as the iPhone, does this allow us to be more productive than other devices?  No.  What about the scenarios described above?  Can these applications handle common scenarios better than before or even just as good?  No.  So looking at several applications that are available, what's described above is NOT as obvious as we thought.  Because if specifications and user needs for a notes application was obvious, we would have solid notes application on the iPhone.  This certainly means that what we described above is not obvious especially for developers and web entrepreneurs, the creators of these applications.

Do the designers/developers of these apps think about how well their product can handle the scenario when someone goes grocery shopping?  Did they look at their application and compare it to Activity 1: writing it on paper and evaluate how using their technology is better than these original acitivities?  From what I see as a user looking at existing applications for notes on the iPhone, the answer is no.

You could attribute my points as mere complaints or frustrations with a device not meant for taking good notes.  You could also say that this is the fault of every early technology.  But the truth is, if the needs were assessed properly and the product development process was done right the first time, we would already have great products for something as simple as notes with almost equal effort.  Certainly, the technology is more than available to make that happen.

In Part II I will review several iPhone notes applications from a human needs perspective and what developers and web entrepreneurs can learn to produce better products for even seemingly simple applications like Notes.