Hard at work on the new note-taking system!

"Introducing the new Note-Taking Feature®. Innovation reinvented, all for the same incredible price."

You're welcome, Apple marketing team. I'll be expecting my job offer shortly.

We've been hard at work on incorporating the feedback from our latest set of usability tests into Access Lecture. We've already taken care of a surprising amount of our to-do list. However, there was one feature that all participants agreed needed a major overhaul: the note-taking feature.

What is the note-taking feature?
In addition to being able to follow along with lecture notes, our goal is to make Access Lecture capable of allowing students to take their own notes by writing directly onto the lecture.

The basic idea:
In using the new note-taking system, students will...

• Press a button to enter "note-taking mode".
• Use an iPad stylus to draw directly onto the real-time lecture stream.
• Save their notes directly onto the iPad as an image.

The issues:
During usability testing, the note-taking system took a snapshot of the currently-visible portion of the lecture. The application then transferred to a separate screen, where pen/eraser options were available. However, the snapshot did not allow the user to scroll or zoom. Additionally, the user's notes stayed on the image, regardless of where the user scrolled to in the lecture view, until the user saved and cleared.

The solution:
After a lot of brainstorming (see the image to your right), we came up with a solution that we hope will mitigate the issues experienced by testers.

Now, upon clicking the note-taking button, the following will happen:

• The user will not be taken out of the lecture view. This means that scrolling, zooming, and other features will still work as normal, and the lecture will continue being updated in real-time while the user is taking notes.
  
• The application's two toolbars will switch to two toolbars formerly present in the note-taking mode/view.
• To enable both writing and scrolling, the scroll gesture will require two fingers will note-taking is active.
  
• The user can write on the real-time lecture, now with no snapshot involved.
• Additional settings have been added, to adjust pen/eraser size.
  

We have this system nearly completed. The only issue we are facing is saving the user's notes, since it is no longer a snapshot of fixed size.

In conclusion:
We are extremely excited about the massive progress being made, largely with the help of our usability testers. Expect good news next week regarding the new note-taking system!

- Alex