Google Keep
Ideation & Redesign around the app
The context
• What? Redesign proposition for Google Keep (mobile and desktop)
• Role: Ideation
• Duration: 1 day, 2021
• Process: ideation, mid-fidelity prototype
• Tools: Miro, sticky-notes, whiteboard
Note-taking apps allow you to have all your notes at the same place rather than ending with a pile of sticky-notes and pieces of paper flying around in your apartment.
I got interested in the topic and looked at the offer. I found Google Keep to be the more convincing one. The interface is pleasant, intuitive and the taking-note part is well covered. However, a specific pain point prevents me from using it on a regular basis:
The problem
The challenge with note-taking is not only to have all your notes at the same place but also to find a way to organize a large number of notes between them.
- Current types of notes: regular notes, checklists, sketches, audio notes, pictures, add reminders, and share a note.
- The current flexibility left for users in terms of the organization only concern individual notes: change the color, re-order them, change the feed view (1 or 2 columns), search for words in the notes, pin a note at the top
How might we allow users to get more visibility over their content, by organizing their notes into smaller groups?
Proposition n°1
I’m playing around with sticky notes to brainstorm ideas. My first thought goes to what you would actually do with physical notes: stacking them in smaller groups.
This additional view feature would allow you to browse your content by category. It also gives you a view of all notes of that category, with their title visible on the top part of the note. You can then select an individual note from there.
That would work for mobile and desktop.
Proposition n°2
The second proposition is also inspired by real sticky-notes. Instead of being stacked, they would be piled up. But the difference is the focus would be on the groups rather than the individual notes.
This view displays the name of each category, instead of the title of each note. When you click on the group, an exploded view allows you to see the content of the group.
This would be only available on the desktop app.
