Note taking is always a pain, be it in uni, a lecture or for us UX designers/architects
One of the tools I use is the Livescribe pen, good concept, nice for taking notes and recording the interview and linking the notes with the voice recording (gone cross eyed yet?)
I am not always walking around with my Livescribe pen and notebook and sometimes I just need a quick way to take notes and highlight some important points that are being said, or as Cohdoo’s say, that “aha” moment.
Enter “Highlight”, an iPhone app that does something and does it really good: Voice recording with the ability to highlight that “aha” moment on the fly!
How it works is pretty simple, you load up the app, click on new recording, start, and whenever you hear that “aha” phrase you just tap on the screen and it marks it so you can review it later on. Dead simple, straight to the point!
You finish recording and want to check it out, this is the sweet part, sometimes we record a dozen of interviews and we need to sort them out quickly, what CH does is offer extra options for your recordings; rate them, write notes, show the location (maps) and add picture/photo be it straight from the camera or library.
Another feature that I really like about it is sharing the recordings via email or through itunes. The extra oomph to the Cohdoo’s Highlight is the Dropbox integration, I know it is hindering with the limited connectivity that we have around in Beirut, but I end up pushing all the data there at the end of day, backing up never hurts.
Overall, I am in love with it, easy, simple, straight to the point and does what it says on the tin, the only downside is that you cannot resume a recording when you get a phone call, you will have to start a new one but the old one will be saved. Don’t forget to switch your iPhone to airplane mode, you are conducting an interview/research and you want the least interruptions possible ;)
Make sure you drop by their site or get the app directly from here
