Blog
.
Toral Contractor
A Pen Makes User Research a Little Easier
October 16th, 2008
The Livescribe Pulse Pen has been out for a while and has been marketed towards high school and college students. However, this will definitely make user researchers’ lives a little bit better. Let me rephrase that. It seems like this pen will make taking notes a little easier, but I still have not bought one yet.
When we go in to conduct an interview, we have our digital recorder, pen and paper ready to go. The Livescribe pen combines the digital recorder and pen together. If you’re like me, you’re in the middle of writing something down and then you hear another point that you want to write. When I stop halfway through my thought, I never finish what I was writing because I’m on to the next point and interview must continue. So, this pen allows you to go back and listen at the very exact moment you were at by tapping your pen on the sentence of the page. The catch: you have to use this special paper.
I recently learned a little bit more about the pen from Rob Tannen’s presentation at the Design Research Conference. I haven’t had a chance to use the pen, but In the mean time, you can read his review of the pen on his blog, Designing for Humans. Rob finds some pretty big flaws in the design such as the pen rolls if you lay it down on the table. Let’s say you didn’t want to write and just wanted to record the audio for a moment. You can’t because you’ll hear a pen rolling down the table and onto the floor. It’s a little odd to think that Livescribe didn’t think of the times when someone would not want to write and just record the audio. Who would have ever thought that we would take the clips on our pens for granted?
.
Tags: User Research
