Digital Pen: Four Rounds of Ethnographic and Field Research

We report on a year-long qualitative and ethnographic project to examine the value of digital pen technology for note taking. A digital pen captures a facsimile of information written on specially patterned paper and makes it available for later review, management, data recognition, and archiving on a PC. We report ethnographic research on note-taking practices among US college students (N=19) and office workers in the US (N=12) and Japan (N=4). We review note-taking patterns observed in controlled laboratory research in the US (N=17) and Japan (N=8) and actual product usage in US field trials (N=15). Finally, we describe note-taking needs reported in enterprise site visits in the US, Japan, Canada, and India (N=28). We review behavioral barriers to adoption of digital pens, including lack of workflow integration, poor environmental availability, and cost. To increase its value to consumers, digital pen technology should cover more kinds of actual writing behavior.