I've been interested in to think about the trend as 'Paperless' which could influence to the designers like us. So I tried to find some articles for this subject to get some ideas.
And I also want to consider that the possibility of handmade graphics.
All the write stuff/ Guardian. 2003
Keyboards may be faster but pens just won't go away.
Mary Branscombe looks at the latest versions of the oldest writing tool
For years, the paperless office has seemed about as likely as the paperless toilet. We print documents to jot down notes on rather than reading them on screen. We take notes on paper rather than on a Tablet PC and not everyone wants to spend the money or carry the extra weight to make that switch.
When you take someone's details, you probably jot them down on scrap paper rather than juggling the phone to type them straight into your address book. And even if you have all of that, there are still forms to deal with. However, if the software is good enough, new digital pens might actually make the difference.
Pen computing isn't a new idea and many computer users already use a pen to control their system. It's not easy to do computer graphics without a graphics tablet and pen. They are not particularly expensive: Wacom's £40 Volito pen and tablet is ideal if you just want to try out writing or if you want to equip the entire office. The size of the tablet is what puts up the price: the A6 version of the more sensitive Graphire pen and tablet is £70, while the A5 Graphire Studio XL is £180. If you're signing your name, sketching a diagram or scribbling down a name and phone number, you don't need a large area on which to write.
Using a pen with a desktop PC isn't the same as using a Tablet PC. For a start, you don't write on to the screen; you're writing on the desk while you look at the screen. If you find that difficult to get used to, the solution is rather pricey: the 18in Wacom Cintiq is a tablet you use as a monitor or tilt down to write directly on to, but it will set you back more than £2,000.
And although most Tablet PCs use the same Wacom hardware as graphics tablets, the digitiser in the Tablet PC screen checks the position of the pen 130 times every second, giving you the smooth curves you need for accurate handwriting recognition and the feeling that the ink is flowing out of the pen and on to the screen, which means the pen on a Tablet feels natural to use.
USB graphics tablets are far smoother than using a mouse to draw but they aren't that fast. Plus, you can't actually buy a copy of the Tablet PC version of Windows XP, so to use a pen for more than just navigating like a mouse, you need handwriting recognition software such as Pen&Internet's ritePen. This lets you write anywhere on screen - on the desktop or inside a window - but your writing automatically ends up in the active application window where you want it. Like the Tablet PC, you don't have to train the software, and if it doesn't get your words quite right, you can pick from the alternatives.
Of course, it's when you're away from your PC that you're most likely to scribble down something important on a piece of paper and lose it. If you don't want to carry a tablet PC or a personal digital assistant, there are two new digital pens from Nokia and Logitech you can use to sign a cheque like a normal pen, or send an email with.
They both work by using paper with a tiny pattern of dots so the pen is able to accurately record the movements you make and store them in its memory. Tick the box to say it's an email, fill in the address and your message gets sent automatically when you get back to your PC and put the pen into its cradle.
With the Nokia Digital Pen, you can send an MMS (multimedia message) from your Nokia mobile phone just by writing on the right piece of paper; the pen sends the message via Bluetooth as an image of your writing. You also get special paper with both pens for Post-It Notes, paper organiser pages, creating appointments in your diary or adding a contact to your address book. And to save on costs, Nokia cleverly includes laminated cards for MMS, calendar and contacts that you can wipe off and use again.
These digital pens work pretty much like a normal pen but they're much more bulky. However, they're both lighter and smaller than a PDA - think shapely highlighter rather than ballpoint pen - and unlike a graphics tablet, they need batteries. And with a price tag of £130 for the Nokia Digital Pen or £150 for the io, you won't want to leave one on a restaurant table. Seiko's InkLink is slightly cheaper at £100, it uses any paper and the pen is much more like a normal pen, because the digitising is done by the large clip you put on one end of the sheet of paper. You can plug it into a PDA or a USB port when you're at your desk, but it is fiddlier than the others.
These pens are fine for jotting down personal information and reminders or drawing sketches, but writing comes across as graphics rather than text, and the handwriting recognition software included with the Logitech io isn't particularly sophisticated. If you want to put digital pens to work on forms rather than personal notes, HP is coming out with its Digital Pen 200 and the Forms Automation System, which lets you print out your own paper on a LaserJet. This works with Pen&Internet's riteForm software so you can print your office forms as usual, fill them in on paper and get the information straight into your database.
Software such as riteForm makes a digital pen more than a gimmick. Not only can you use it to do what lots of people do in the office every day, only without someone else having to do it all over again when they type in the information from the forms, but what you get out of it isn't a proprietary kind of digital ink, just information that goes straight into your existing systems. Like the best Tablet PC applications, pen-enabled software needs to be true digital paper rather than a paper interface that's been digitised - combining the simplicity of picking up a pen and writing with the automation that makes computers worth using.
Whether you're taking notes or filling in a form, using a digital pen rather than a keyboard means you don't have to lose the flexibility of paper. Leonid Kitainik, general manager for Pen&Internet comments that: "Creative thinking is not simply thinking in typed text: it includes images, charts, layouts. If we broaden the definition of a document to include drawings and look for a mass market device to enrich the documents, what can replace the pen?"
Mary Branscombe looks at the latest versions of the oldest writing tool
For years, the paperless office has seemed about as likely as the paperless toilet. We print documents to jot down notes on rather than reading them on screen. We take notes on paper rather than on a Tablet PC and not everyone wants to spend the money or carry the extra weight to make that switch.
When you take someone's details, you probably jot them down on scrap paper rather than juggling the phone to type them straight into your address book. And even if you have all of that, there are still forms to deal with. However, if the software is good enough, new digital pens might actually make the difference.
Pen computing isn't a new idea and many computer users already use a pen to control their system. It's not easy to do computer graphics without a graphics tablet and pen. They are not particularly expensive: Wacom's £40 Volito pen and tablet is ideal if you just want to try out writing or if you want to equip the entire office. The size of the tablet is what puts up the price: the A6 version of the more sensitive Graphire pen and tablet is £70, while the A5 Graphire Studio XL is £180. If you're signing your name, sketching a diagram or scribbling down a name and phone number, you don't need a large area on which to write.
Using a pen with a desktop PC isn't the same as using a Tablet PC. For a start, you don't write on to the screen; you're writing on the desk while you look at the screen. If you find that difficult to get used to, the solution is rather pricey: the 18in Wacom Cintiq is a tablet you use as a monitor or tilt down to write directly on to, but it will set you back more than £2,000.
And although most Tablet PCs use the same Wacom hardware as graphics tablets, the digitiser in the Tablet PC screen checks the position of the pen 130 times every second, giving you the smooth curves you need for accurate handwriting recognition and the feeling that the ink is flowing out of the pen and on to the screen, which means the pen on a Tablet feels natural to use.
USB graphics tablets are far smoother than using a mouse to draw but they aren't that fast. Plus, you can't actually buy a copy of the Tablet PC version of Windows XP, so to use a pen for more than just navigating like a mouse, you need handwriting recognition software such as Pen&Internet's ritePen. This lets you write anywhere on screen - on the desktop or inside a window - but your writing automatically ends up in the active application window where you want it. Like the Tablet PC, you don't have to train the software, and if it doesn't get your words quite right, you can pick from the alternatives.
Of course, it's when you're away from your PC that you're most likely to scribble down something important on a piece of paper and lose it. If you don't want to carry a tablet PC or a personal digital assistant, there are two new digital pens from Nokia and Logitech you can use to sign a cheque like a normal pen, or send an email with.
They both work by using paper with a tiny pattern of dots so the pen is able to accurately record the movements you make and store them in its memory. Tick the box to say it's an email, fill in the address and your message gets sent automatically when you get back to your PC and put the pen into its cradle.
With the Nokia Digital Pen, you can send an MMS (multimedia message) from your Nokia mobile phone just by writing on the right piece of paper; the pen sends the message via Bluetooth as an image of your writing. You also get special paper with both pens for Post-It Notes, paper organiser pages, creating appointments in your diary or adding a contact to your address book. And to save on costs, Nokia cleverly includes laminated cards for MMS, calendar and contacts that you can wipe off and use again.
These digital pens work pretty much like a normal pen but they're much more bulky. However, they're both lighter and smaller than a PDA - think shapely highlighter rather than ballpoint pen - and unlike a graphics tablet, they need batteries. And with a price tag of £130 for the Nokia Digital Pen or £150 for the io, you won't want to leave one on a restaurant table. Seiko's InkLink is slightly cheaper at £100, it uses any paper and the pen is much more like a normal pen, because the digitising is done by the large clip you put on one end of the sheet of paper. You can plug it into a PDA or a USB port when you're at your desk, but it is fiddlier than the others.
These pens are fine for jotting down personal information and reminders or drawing sketches, but writing comes across as graphics rather than text, and the handwriting recognition software included with the Logitech io isn't particularly sophisticated. If you want to put digital pens to work on forms rather than personal notes, HP is coming out with its Digital Pen 200 and the Forms Automation System, which lets you print out your own paper on a LaserJet. This works with Pen&Internet's riteForm software so you can print your office forms as usual, fill them in on paper and get the information straight into your database.
Software such as riteForm makes a digital pen more than a gimmick. Not only can you use it to do what lots of people do in the office every day, only without someone else having to do it all over again when they type in the information from the forms, but what you get out of it isn't a proprietary kind of digital ink, just information that goes straight into your existing systems. Like the best Tablet PC applications, pen-enabled software needs to be true digital paper rather than a paper interface that's been digitised - combining the simplicity of picking up a pen and writing with the automation that makes computers worth using.
Whether you're taking notes or filling in a form, using a digital pen rather than a keyboard means you don't have to lose the flexibility of paper. Leonid Kitainik, general manager for Pen&Internet comments that: "Creative thinking is not simply thinking in typed text: it includes images, charts, layouts. If we broaden the definition of a document to include drawings and look for a mass market device to enrich the documents, what can replace the pen?"
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