From UPA Boston's Lightening Talks

1. Using the LiveScribe Pen for Usability Notes
Prepared by:
Daniel Berlin – Experience Research Director
September 21, 2011
UPA Boston Lightning Talks

2. Today’s Presentation
• What does it do?
• Notes on taking notes
• Other features
• Challenges
• Demonstration
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3. What does it do?
• Records audio while you take notes
• That’s basically it
• Why is this so handy for usability researchers?
• Capturing quotes and video
Rec/Pause/Stop Bookmark Playback speed
- Control recording - Mark the audio for later review - Umm… playback speed
- Usefulness: 100% - Usefulness: 50% - Usefulness: 85%
- Start/stop sessions - Prefer written bookmark - Good for fast talkers
Menu Controls Jump Jump to position Volume
- Navigate the on-pen - Skip 10 seconds - Quasi-scrubber - Pen volume
menus - Usefulness: 50% - Usefulness: 0% (not recording volume)
- Usefulness: 30% - Rarely listen from pen - Prefer to click on text - Usefulness: 100%
- Rarely use on-pen menus - Mute your pen!
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4. Notes on taking notes
There is
Yesh: Hebrew
for “there is”
- it’s just quicker
Finding
- Big star stands out when
skimming notes
Quote marker and scrubber
- Prefer to not move my pen to the bottom of
the page to add a bookmark
- Line creates your own scrubber for the quote
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5. Other features
• Creates a “Pencast PDF”
• Writing follows the audio, just like in the LiveScribe software, but in a PDF
• Connects to Evernote (yay!) and Facebook (who cares?)
• Need a premium Evernote account to upload large files (boo!)
• Shares “Pencasts” on Facebook
• Obligatory iPhone & iPad app
• Used to view Pencasts, including those published by others
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6. Challenges
• Well, you’ve all seen my handwriting now
• Not fun to spend more than a few minutes trying to discern a sentence
• Pen ink doesn’t last
• Refills are small, but readily available
• Only rollerball tips are available
• Have to write on the microdotted paper
• But, you can print your own
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7. Demonstration
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8. Contact Info
• @banderlin
• dberlin@madpow.net
• SpeakerRate: http://spkr8.com/s/18260
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