Note-taking Apps for Students and Information Designers
Note-taking can be a personal thing, and it seems like you can expect only so much from note apps. But you would be surprised how great assistants some note-taking apps can be for your school projects and work! I’d like to share my review on five note-taking apps that can be useful for you as a student and an information designer: Google Keep, Evernote, Notability, OneNote, and Notion. They all work very well for taking basic notes, but I would like to focus on their additional features so you can compare their strengths and weaknesses.
Google Keep for simplicity and convenience
Availability: Android, iOS, and Web
Price: Free
Pros
- Free
- Simple and easy to use
- Seamless Integration
Cons
- Limited function for design work
One of the best things about Google Keep is that it is completely free. The only cost would be for the Google storage if you need more than 15GB, which starts at $2.79/month (Plans & Pricing, n.d.). The simplicity is another strength of Google Keep. The UI is quite simple and consistent between laptop and mobile. It is designed intuitively as if you are creating digital sticky notes. You just start taking notes with just one click and you can also create to-do list with checkboxes. You can customize visual aspects of each note. You can also set a reminder at certain time or location, and you can easily collaborate with others just by adding a collaborator. You can also create labels to organize notes in different categories.
Moreover, it integrates with other google services very well. To launch Google Keep, you can go to keep.google.com, but you can launch it from most of the Google services like Gmail, the calendar, and google doc. When you click on the light bulb icon in the right sidebar, you can see all your notes and you can even create a note right there (Tasia Custode, 2020). You can also easily import the notes to other google services. For example, in google doc page, you can see the notes by clicking the lightbulb icon, and you can easily import the notes to your google doc just by dragging and dropping.
However, although the simplicity is the strength of Google Keep, it can be limited for design work if you want to take notes with a digital pen like apple pencil to draw your visual design ideas.
Evernote for maximum productivity
Availability: Android, iOS, macOS, Windows, and Web
Price: Free
Personal $9.99/month
Professional $12.49/month
Evernote Teams $14.99/month
Pros
- Well-organized
- Versatile
- Search function
- Templates
Cons
- Relatively high price
- Not the best for collaboration
Evernote is one of the most well-known note-taking apps with many good features. Firstly, Evernote is quite well-organized, in the levels of notes, notebooks, and stacks. The UI is simple and consistent throughout different platforms. Secondly, it is definitely more versatile compared to other simpler notes like Google Keep. You can easily insert various content such as image or pdf within the note. With extensions on your web browser, you can use web clipper to save certain news articles or postings in your note (Evernote Web Clipper, n.d.). These notes can also be connected to Gmail, Outlook, Google drive, and even Zapier (Guinness, 2021). Thirdly, Evernote has a very advanced search function. It can search a specific word among typed text and tags in the basic version, and even hand-written script or imbedded files in paid plans (Prokopets, 2019). Lastly, it has many templates you can use on the go, so you just need to click the template you want and start writing!
It certainly is a very good productivity app with a lot of functions, but it is relatively high priced, compared to other note apps. It is also not the best place for collaboration (Prokopets, 2019). There are basic collaboration functions like sharing notes with others, but it’s still geared towards individual users.
Notability for notes with recorded audio
Availability: iOS, macOS
Price: Free
Subscription $14.99/year
Pros
- Audio recording
- Well-rounded
- Ideal for creative work
Cons
- Large PDF file sizes
Notability is another popular note-taking app. Notability’s biggest strength is the audio recording function. It is very useful when you are taking notes in lectures or when you’re conducting an interview, of course with the consent of the person you’re interviewing. The best part is that the audio and your writing are synced so when you replay the audio, it replays your notes along the audio. You can click on a certain part of the note, then the exact part of the audio replays.
Also, if Evernote was versatile as a productivity application, Notability can be described as a well-rounded sketchbook. It has a good organizational system with dividers and subjects, it is easy to import and export PDF files, and it has convenient tools for both writing and drawing. Furthermore, from lecture notes to artistic expressions, it can be very flexible regarding how you can use it when you are using it with an apple pencil. You can show off your creativity in all your notes!
The only downside is that the PDF file sizes are quite large because Notability uses a lot of vectors, so it takes up lots of space when syncing through cloud or google drive.
Microsoft OneNote for reliability
Availability: Android, iOS, macOS, Windows, and Web
Price: Free
Pros
- Reliable
- Integration with Office Suite
- Infinite canvas size
Cons
- Slow on tablet and mobile
OneNote is another free but reliable note-taking app like Google Keep. Considering Microsoft is a giant company and OneNote is well-established, the reliability is high. And since Microsoft Office Suite is widely used for school and work, it can be a good time investment to learn. It is also compatible with other Microsoft Office programs. OneNote has similar UI and functions with the other Microsoft Office services, and it can easily be integrated with Office Suite. For example, on Windows, you can convert a table in your note to excel spreadsheet to process more complex data (Microsoft, n.d.). Moreover, flexible use of the canvas is another strength of OneNote. You can click anywhere to start taking notes, and you can drag image files to anywhere you want. The Canvas expands as you click the far right or bottom, so you pretty much have an infinite space here.
However, OneNote is that it is more optimized for web, so it is a bit slow on tablet and mobile. For the same reason, writing with a digital pen is not the best on OneNote.
Notion for collaboration
Availability: Android, iOS, macOS, Windows, and Web
Price: Free
Personal Pro $4/month (Free for students and teachers)
Team $8/month
Pros
- Best for collaboration
- Well-integrated hyperlinks and embedded objects
Cons
- Not good for offline use
Notion is an emerging note-taking app, and it seems like a lot of people are actually switching from Evernote to Notion as it has similar features with a lot better price for personal use. However, the biggest strength of Notion lies in collaboration. It allows for seamless integration of hyperlinks and embedded objects. In Notion, you can share your work with anyone whether they are a member or not on Notion (Notion Essentials, 2020). In addition to basic sharing functions, it allows a real-time collaboration. You can work on the same note at the same time and leave comments on someone else’s work, similar to google workspace or brainstorming app like miro and mural. But because Notion has a variety of features and templates that you can use as a student or a designer, I think it can expand your ability even further. For example, you can set up different notes for each stage of your design work, and you can share each note with your teammate or client as you progress (Jesse Showalter, 2020). You can also assign projects and share the progress, so everyone is informed during the whole process (Notion Essentials, 2020). This way, the whole design process can be organized even when you’re working with multiple people.
Moreover, although other note apps have web clipping functions and it is pretty easy to bring images from web, Notion seems to be on the next level. You can hyperlink not only webpages but also your own notes so that you can jump between notes. Similar to blogging, you can embed websites, files, and other notes within your note seamlessly. As you can see here, you can just use the website on your note. This would be helpful when you want to save many different resources in a single note without having to go to each website.
On the other hand, offline experience on Notion is not so good. It has some issues of loading pages and synchronizing when you’re offline.
Conclusion
These five note app are all great, and they are good at the core function, taking notes! However, depending on what you’re looking for you can consider their strengths and choose the right one. If you want simple and easy to use notes, Google Keep is the best. If you want to integrate notes between different document formats, both Google Keep and OneNote would be good options, especially if you are already a Google or Microsoft user. For collaboration, Notion. For all-in-one productivity for personal use, Evernote. For recording function for lectures or interviews, Notability. And for some creative work, Notability and Notion. Happy note-taking!
References
Evernote Web Clipper. (n.d.). Evernote. Retrieved February 26, 2022, from https://evernote.com/features/webclipper
Guinness, H. (2021, December 8). The 6 best note-taking apps of 2022. Zapier. https://zapier.com/blog/best-note-taking-apps/
Jesse Showalter. (2020, May 20). Collaborating with Clients using Notion. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_UtTwejswn4&ab_channel=JesseShowalter
Microsoft. (n.d.). Convert a OneNote table to an Excel worksheet. Retrieved February 26, 2022, from https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/convert-a-onenote-table-to-an-excel-worksheet-f693d0ec-aad7-4441-9596-e5e1e641935d
Notability. (n.d.). Notability. Retrieved February 26, 2022, from https://notability.com/
Notion Essentials. (2020, September 11). How to Use Notion for Collaboration with Other People. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5dBY7PXEDP0&ab_channel=NotionEssentials
Plans & Pricing. (n.d.). Google One. Retrieved February 25, 2022, from https://one.google.com/about/plans
Prokopets, M. (2019, August 3). Evernote Review: Has the King of Note-Taking Apps Been Replaced? Nira. https://nira.com/evernote-review/#:%7E:text=Evernote’s%20OCR%20is%20very%20accurate,typewritten%20and%2011%20handwritten%20languages.
Tasia Custode. (2020, September 10). Google Keep Tutorial for Beginners: How to Use Google Keep. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yNXE-BiLuCU&ab_channel=TasiaCustode
