PAPERSCHI 97 * 22-27 MARCH 1997DYNOMITE: A DYNAMICALLY ORGANIZEDINK AND AUDIO NOTEBOOKLynn D. WilcoxBill N. Schilit Nitin “Nick” SawhneyFX Palo Alto LaboratoryFX Palo Alto LaboratorySpeech Interface Group3400 Hillview Avenue, Bldg. 43400 Hillview Avenue, Bldg. 4 MIT Media LaboratoryPalo Alto, CA 94304 USAPalo Alto, CA 94304 USACambridge, MA 02139 USA+1 415813-7574+1 415813-7220 +1 617258-5956wilcox(ii)pal.xe rox.com [email protected]. com nitin(tjjmedia. mit.eduABSTRACTDynomitc is a portable electronic notebook for the captureand retrieval of handwritten and audionotes. The goal ofDynomitc is to merge the organization, search, and dataacquisition capabilities of a computer with the benefits of apaper-based notebook. Dynomite provides novel solutionsin tour key problem areas. First, Dynomite uses a casual,low cognitive overhead interface. Second, for content in-dexing of notes, Dynomite uses ink properties and key-words. Third, to assist organization, Dynomite’s propertiesand keywords define views, presenting a subset of the note-book content that dynamically changes as users add newinformation. Finally, to augment handwritten notes withaudio on devices with limited storage, Dynomite continu-ously records audio, but only permanently stores those partshighlighted by the user.KeywordsElectronic notebook, note-taking, audio interfaces, hand-writing, keyword indexing,ink properties, retrieval, paper-Iike interfaces, PDA, pen computing.INTRODUCTIONThis paper describes the Dynomite notebook, a pen-basednote-taking system that combines the ease of use of papernotebooks with the power of computers. Writing notes is auniversal activity of students, executives, scientists, andother knowledge workers. Students take notes during classand review them before exams. Scientists write notes in labbooks to document experimental results. Executives takenotes in meetings to record action items.Although computers have proven adept at all manner ofdata processing, paper is still generally preferred overPDAs and portable computers for note-taking. Studyingpaper notebooks helped us to understand the affordances ofpaper [13] where freeform input, spatial layout, and evenPem]issicsoto nmke digltol/hard copies of all or part of this material forpersonal or cliwwoom use isgranted without lee provided that the copieswe not made or distributed l“orproli{ or commercial advantage, the copy-right nolice, the title O1-lhe publication wd its date appear, and notice isgiven IIMII copyright is by pmnission of theACM,inc. To copy otherwise,torepublish, to posl m servers or to redistrihule to lists, requires specificpermission andlor kcCH[ 97, .4tlwtl (iA LISAGpyright 1997ACM(J-89791-802-9/97/03 ..$3.50doodles (for their visual cues) are an integral part of thenote-taking process. The approach taken by Dynomite is toenhance the traditional paper note-taking activity ratherthan define a new process as personal organizers and port-able computers do. In contrast to Classroom 2000 [1],which supports note-taking in a classroom lecture usingpreviously made visual materials (view-graphs), our targetis note-taking for any knowledge worker, anyplace.The design of a portable electronic notebook must address anumber of issues. First, what qualities of paper notebooksare important to emulate in an electronic version, and whichcan we improve upon? Second, since people use notebooksin meetings and at times when they must concentrate onthings other than the note-taking process, how can our sys-tem obtain keys for indexing while maintaining a low cog-nitive load? Next, how can we use a computer to help or-ganize and display the information in a notebook? Finally,how can audio augment handwritten notes on devices withlimited storage?Our design provides new solutions in the four problem ar-eas above. An important aspect of paper notebooks is theirease of use. The interface to Dynomite is similar to a stan-dard paper notebook. Users see a screen with the appear-ance of a page in a traditional notebook and enter freeformhand-written notes that are stored as digital ink. The Tivoli[12] system is similar, in that it emulates whiteboard func-tionality on a Liveboard. Microsoft’s aha! Inkwriter [9]mimics a word-processor by reformatting ink to fit the col-umns of a page, and allows users to edit handwritten notes.Usem of the Paper-based Audio Notebook [14] take noteson paper placed on a digitizing tablet, thus allowing notesto be linked to recorded audio.Dynomite achieves low cognitive load by using ink withoutrecognition during the note-taking process. However, thelack of text input exacerbates the problem of obtaining keysfor indexing. We take a two-fold approach. First, Dynomiteallows users to associate properties, or data types, such as“To Do” or “Name,” with a collection of digital ink. Sec-ond, Dynomite allows the user to assign text keywords to apage of notes. While Filochat [16]provides a notebook186CHI 97 * 22-27 IMARCH 1997PAPERSstructure for handwritten notes. it does not address theproblem of indexing and retrieval.Another problem Dynomite addresses is notebook organi-zation. Typically users take notes chronologically on anumber of topics and thus actually have a number of dis-tinct topic threads running through one notebook. Dynomitehas the ability to retrieve subsets of the notebook by speci-fying dates, properties, and keywords. The user sees theseretrieval results as a view on the notebook, analogous toviews in a database system. Users may define and revisitnotebook views thereby providing a dynamic organizationof the changing content of the notebook. Erickson’s Proteuslaptop notebook [4] and Classroom 2000 [1] have keywordretrieval, but only over text-based content.Finally, Dynomiteexplores the use of audio to augmenthandwritten notes on devices with limited storage. Audio isrecorded continuously and synchronized with the digitalink, but only those portions of the audio highlighted by theuser are permanently stored. Users decide whether the non-highlighted audio is deleted or compressed. While Notetime[8]. Filochat [16], Cord [10] and others [1,14,15] recordaudio synchronously with handwritten notes, they do notaddress the audio storage issue.These four sets of features provide many of the benefits ofboth paper and computer note-taking systems. The nextsection covers a study on notebook usage that helped in-form the design of the system. Following that we describeour current implementation of Dynomite.