I wrote a paper last week for systems engineering, analyzing two systems — one flawed and one acceptable.  This paraphrased version, while perhaps a bit overly technical, will hopefully serve as reasonable app advice for anyone seeking it.

As a student, I know that taking good notes in class is a surefire way to perform better on exams, quizzes, and homework assignments.  But I’ve always struggled to find an effective balance between jotting down too much detail while making the notes easy to follow later for studying.  The problem lies in  finding where, in all the pages of notes I have taken, the one tiny reminder or equation is scribbled. I initially considered taking notes on my laptop for its ability to index text, making it searchable, but quickly ruled it out.  As an engineer, I am constantly writing equations, solving problems, and making diagrams.  Limited to the ability of typing or primitive shape-making, I knew a laptop was insufficient.

Enter iPad.  I can take indexible text notes, while taking advantage of the touch-screen to draw diagrams and handwrite equations.  I even bought a stylus to make it more like handwriting.  With the hardware issue solved, it was just a matter of finding the right software (app) that would allow for both keyboard and drawings.

SoundNote: Flawed

The first app I tried is called SoundNote.  From the description and screenshots, it seemed to have everything I needed: indexible text input combined with freehand drawing, all exportable to PDF and my computer.  But after purchasing the app and using it in class, I quickly became aware of its shortcomings.  Instead of treating drawn lines as blots of ink, SoundNote treats all contiguous sections as objects.  This object metaphor is the app’s downfall.

First, the touchable area around a drawn object is too large.  This makes it impossible to draw new lines near old onesbecause the program thinks I am trying to select the old object.  In the screenshot, the dot toward the upper right is the closest to the highlighted object I could draw.  When taking notes, I was unable to make a reasonable “=” sign or add subscripts to variables.

The second problem stems from the application’s interpretation of a touch, thinking of it as either a “select” or a “draw” command.  A single, unmoving tap on the screen will act as a “select” action, and the program will attempt to highlight any drawn object near it.  Drawing the dot of an i or simple points becomes impossible. After just one day of taking notes, I was back in the app store hunting for alternatives.

Mental Note: Great

The second app I tried, and still use today, is called Mental Note.  When in drawing mode, the app doesn’t use an object metaphor, but replicates how handwriting works in the physical world: no matter how small or close to other drawings you touch, it will still recognize the touch as a “draw” action, and place ink.  Instead of selecting objects, then touching delete, Mental Note has an eraser in addition to undo/redo buttons.  This much more refined app performs with ease the two basic functions necessary for handwriting digitally: drawing and erasing.

Prioritizing Requirements

The developers of SoundNote should have realized that the primary requirements of the drawing feature: writing and erasing, take precedent over all others and should not be compromised.  Contrarily, the developers of Mental Note have a much better understanding of their stakeholders and the requirements about which they care the most.  The basic drawing operation is simple and robust.  The eraser operation acts just like the physical equivalent, erasing everything you touch.  However, the developers realized a more effective operation to perform the erase function: undo.  The undo operation acts like a fast eraser on your most relevant drawing: your most recent one.

Final Verdict: Mental Note

I continue to use Mental Note everyday, and am much more pleased with it as a result of the good systems engineering the developers used, primarily their stakeholder analysis and prioritizing of requirements.  SoundNote on the other hand failed to realize their stakeholders’ most important requirements and have created an inferior product.