Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!ames!indri!aplcen!haven!umd5!carm
From: carm@umd5.umd.edu (Rick Chimera)
Newsgroups: comp.cog-eng
Subject: Re: Positional note-taking
Keywords: annotation
Message-ID: <5232@umd5.umd.edu>
Date: 18 Aug 89 15:07:48 GMT
References: <1440004@hp-ptp.HP.COM> <1466@hydra.gatech.EDU>
Reply-To: carm@umd5.umd.edu (Rick Chimera)
Organization: University of Maryland, College Park
Lines: 57

In article <1466@hydra.gatech.EDU> russ@prism.gatech.EDU (Russell Shackelford) writes:
>In article <1440004@hp-ptp.HP.COM>, garye@hp-ptp.HP.COM (Gary_Ericson) writes:
>> There is a technique used by many people I know, including me, for taking notes
>> or jotting down ideas, and it has to do with including positional information
>> in the text to symbolize relationships between ideas.  Two of the mechanisms I 
>> use are indentation, to indicate an outline, and clustering, grouping words and
>> phrases together physically on the page to indicate their relationship.
      [ some text deleted ]
>> taking notes during a phone call).  The keyboard channels the user into a 
>> serial stream of input, while note taking like this requires a two-dimensional
>> approach.
>> 
>> Gary Ericson - Hewlett-Packard, Workstation Systems Division
>>                phone: (408)746-5098  mailstop: 101N  email: gary@hpdsla9.hp.com

>have you tried Ready! from Symantec (Living Videotext Div, I think).  It's
>mem resident and is a wonderful little outliner.  expand amd contract, move
>things around etc.  Grandview is the same idea taken to a further degree:
>each item in the outline can "hide" and entire document and/or another
>outline.
>
>i am assuming here that an outliner does what you do on paper, with
>use of CR's to define clusters in space at a given level of indentation.
>-- 
>Russell Shackelford
>School of Information and Computer Science
>Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA, 30332
>russ@prism.gatech.edu         (404) 834-4759

I'd like to address the two-dimensional and grouping problem raised.
A natural way to implement truly random 2D clustering of ideas can be
imagined on a typical X WindowSystem type environment ("imagined"
since I'm not familiar with lots of X applications, one may be out
there).  Starting with a blank page, one can ask for a new scrolling
text subwindow, place and size it anywhere in the main window, and
begin entering text.  Should one enter more text than fits in the
original size of the subwindow, the scrolling comes in to play.  And
no right-justification please, the shape of the text image is
important.

This simple idea takes advantage of two very important cognitive
factors, size/shape information and spatial placement relative to
other objects on the window (page).  Very often when I am trying to
remember items from my handwritten notes, I will "begin" remembering
by realizing the item was at the top of the page or to the right of a
particular doodle, etc. Then remember its shape, perhaps one line went
out really far.  These two attributes have been categorically lost in
the computer world to date, except perhaps in the high powered,
academic, workstation env.  Systems such as Cognoter, a tool for a
group, and NoteCards, a tool for an individual, by Xerox PARC allow
such attributes of notes to be preserved.


Rick Chimera
(soon of) The Human Computer Interaction Laboratory, U of Md
carm@umd5.umd.edu
"The ideas expressed herein are now yours."