Every now and then I go off the tablet completely.
I return to paper and a pen. That usually lasts for a few months.
Then someone hands me a tricky problem to solve. Or I get excited about a new idea that requires me to think in a complex way.
Do you ever have these moments? When your mind mulls over and over one idea?
During those times, even if I start the thinking with a paper and pen, I often give the tablet a try.
Why Tablets Are Great For Complex Thinking
Don Norman, author of the Design of Everyday Things, uses the term ‘affordance’. An affordance refers to the properties of an object that make certain behaviours possible.
For example, a chair has an affordance that allows people to sit. The two loops of scissors have an affordance for fingers and a thumb so we can cut.
A tablet (via the combination of the device, a stylus and notetaking software) provide affordances for certain interactions that help with complex thinking.
4 Unique Interactions Not Possible With Pen & Paper
Consider this. On a tablet we can:
- Move a drawing (eg. select and move a sketched object to change its order)
- Scale a drawing (eg. make a single sketched object smaller or larger)
- Zoom in/out (eg. we can zoom in to add further, finer detail to a sketched object)
- Change art-board or paper (eg. if the size of digital paper we are sketching on is A4, we could enlarge the art-board to A3 or A2 , so more can be fit on the page)
This is exciting, not because of the technology itself, but because these interactions offer new possibilities to deepen our thinking compared with paper.
And any tool that helps our brains interact with and simplify complex information is worth knowing about.
Examples Of Activities Where This May Apply
Some activities suit this style of thinking better than others.
In my experience, any activity that requires most or all of the following is helped by a tablet:
- iterative thinking
- lots of information or data
- classification and re-classification of information
- relationships between objects and ideas
- a sense of sequence or flow
- sketchnoting and visual thinking
As examples, these activities benefit from thinking on a tablet:
- User Journeys: presenting many steps that a typical user takes in order to complete a task;
- Prioritizing, Categorizing & Coding: working with ideas or data that require coding, categorization and/or prioritization, as with this with a recent article on effective projects;
- Systems Maps: using a visual language to describe all the aspects and interactions of a complex system. Leyla Acaroglu teaches systems thinking and provides some useful tips on other tools to help with systems maps;
- Roadmaps: charting the course of delivery and execution plans, including detailed dependencies between tasks;
- Integrated Frameworks: bringing together diverse and seemingly separate themes and ideas into a coordinated framework (eg. Operating Models, Design Systems, Spotify’s Scaling Agile Framework)
Tablets do have downsides compared to paper. Most don’t give the sensation of friction when a pen moves across paper and the backlight of the screen can cause fatigue.
Overall, they present some unique possibilities that can enhance personal thinking and productivity.
What do you think? Consider sharing your thoughts by adding a comment below.
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