User's Annotations

Examples:

Handwritten comments on a page margin
Sticky notes on an appliance panel

Bad Examples:

User-written comments in Windows Help. I know it can be done, but I've never found out how, mostly because I almost never use Windows Help -- it's not easy enough to find specific pages, nor is it close enough to where I need the help most.

Context: The artifact is complex and difficult to learn, but will be used again by the same user or by others. This is common in Sovereign Posture artifacts, especially ones that are used infrequently.

Problem: How can the artifact help preserve the user's hard-won understanding from one use session to the next?

Forces:

For infrequently-needed details, knowledge "in the world" is better than knowledge in the user's head -- it is more reliable, and less burdensome to the user.
Users know better what's memorable to them than the artifact does (or the artifact's designer).
The artifact's designer cannot possibly predict all the context or information needed for it to be used most effectively by certain users.
Users get a sense of ownership and control over the artifact by modifying it.
The proper spatial placement of help text can increase its effectiveness.

Solution: Support ways for users to add their own comments and other annotations to the artifact. Allow the users to place those annotations physically close to where they are needed, and if possible, allow for simple drawings in addition to text. Let users write private comments, for their own eyes only, and also let them write public ones that other users can read. Save the annotations from session to session, as a part of the artifact's Remembered State.

Resulting Context: Make sure the comments are extremely easy to use, or users are not likely to bother with it -- if it's too much effort, a user will probably choose to use sticky notes instead, or scribble a note in the manual's margin or something.

Notes: The truly ambitious designer may even want to use some kind of revision history. Be careful not to introduce too much unneeded complexity, of course.

Comments to: jtidwell@alum.mit.edu
Last modified May 17, 1999