NotePals

NotePals is a lightweight note sharing system that gives group members easy access to each others experiences through their personal notes. The system allows notes taken by group members in any context to be uploaded to a shared repository. Group members view these notes with browsers that allow them to retrieve all notes taken in a given context or to access notes from other related notes or documents. This is possible because NotePals records the context in which each note is created (e.g., its author, subject, and creation time). The system is lightweight because it fits easily into group members regular note- taking practices, and uses informal, ink-based user interfaces that run on portable, inexpensive hardware. In this paper we describe NotePals, show how we have used it to share our notes, and present our evaluations of the system.