RailsConf 2014 - Sketchnothing: Creative Notes for Technical Content by Jessica Eldredge

JESSICA ELDREDGE: Hello everyone.

Thank you so much for coming.

My name is Jessica Eldredge.

I'm a front-end developer at Shopify,

and today I want to talk to you about taking
notes.

More specifically, I want to talk about taking

awesome notes by practicing sketchnoting.

How many of you guys have heard of sketchnotes

before? Oh, great. So exciting.

Is anyone sketchnoting right

now? I love you guys. Please share afterwards.
We're

gonna Tweet all the photos.

So if you haven't heard of sketchnoting, let
me

explain. I like to describe it as visual notetaking.

It's the practice of combining hand-drawn
elements and text

to create visually-compelling notes. Are you
familiar with mind

maps? Show of hands? Anybody done that before?
Yes?

Who's used a whiteboard when designing software
before? All

right. See? You guys got this. You're already
familiar

with the concept of sketchnoting.

Basically, it's the difference between notes
like this and

notes like this. I first started sketchnoting
because of

a man named Mike Rohde. He's a designer who

lives in the midwest, and he coined the term

sketchnoting. I was preparing to go to South
by

Southwest one year, and I was searching the
internet

for photos, trying to get an idea of what

I was getting myself into, and I stumbled
across

his notes.

And he's been doing this for a long time.

At least since 2008. And, you know, he does

it when travels, when he goes to conferences,
meetings.

And I just went into this rabbithole of looking

at his wonderful notes and I thought, you
know,

I think I can do this. Or I at

least want to give it a try. And so

I started practicing. I did it at that South

by that I attended and local meetups and,
and

meetings at work and I totally fell in love.

So I was going back through the archives,
preparing

for this talk, trying to find some of my

first sketchnotes, and these are my very first
sketchnotes.

And it's probably kind of hard to read, but

the first speaker I saw was actually DHH.
I

had no idea who he was back then. I

was like, what is this? Thirty-seven signals?
I don't

know.

My sketchnotes have changed a lot since then.
Get

ready for some eye candy.

These are some notes by Paul Soupiset. He's
one

of my favorites. I really love his handwriting.
Veronica

Erb likes to incorporate illustrations into
her notes. She's

got a really playful style. Sacha Chua. She's
from

Toronto. She goes to a lot of technical talks.

Captures a lot of content in her notes. And

she actually uses a tablet PC and a stylus.

I like that there's a lot of dense content

here, but you can still kind of tell what's

going on, cause she's highlighted the key
points.

You can also use an iPad. There's various
apps

on the iPad. You use a stylus to take

notes, like Daniel Kirsch. Super condensed,
simplified. I love

the pops of color. You can still get the

point across.

So there's a couple different ways that you
can

take notes. There's live and there's later.
Live sketchnoting

involves taking the notes at the same time
that

the presentation is happening. You're doing
it in the

moment. Later sketchnoting is kind of where
you might

be able to jot down some bullet points, maybe

using your computer, maybe on another piece
of paper,

and you go back to your sketchbook later and

draw them out.

I prefer to do live sketchnoting, because
I'm a

developer. I like to keep things DRY. I don't

want to repeat myself. When the talk is done,

my notes are done. I can immediately share
them

and I can move on and enjoy the next

talk. So for the rest of this talk, the

techniques I'm gonna talk about mostly refer
to live

sketchnoting.

So why do we want to sketchnote? Firstly,
I

think there's inspiration in analog processes.
Taking yourselves out

of your computer. We're all developers, we
spend a

lot of time on our gadgets and our devices.

But spending some time with just good old
pen

and paper allows for a change of perspective.
You

get outside of your comfort zone and you start

seeing things in a different way.

Hopefully, while slowing down, you can clarify
some ideas

that you already have and maybe come up with

some new ones. Some famous sketchers that
didn't do

it for a living include DaVinci, Kurt Vonnegut,
Darwin,

and Freud. All of those people are amazing.
We

know what they've done. They used sketching
to help

clarify their ideas.

Sketchnoting also allows you to focus. How
many of

you guys have been in a meeting with your

computer and you just check email real quick
or

maybe somebody IMs you cause there's a bug
on

production and you gotta fix it like right
now?

Basically, the computer is a rabbit hole of
distractions.

So, when I sketchnote, I try to put things

away. I keep my phone out in case I

need to look up words that I'm not familiar

with, but all I have is my sketchbook and

my pen and I'm listening to the content. You

know, once you're on the computer, there's
just way

too much stuff that can come up and I

really like stepping away from that.

Sketchnoting also helps to improve your memory.
There's this

concept called the Duel Coding Theory which
is proposed

by Allen Pyvo. It's saying that we process
information

in two different ways. Using verbal and visual
information.

And if you utilize both of them, you have

a better chance of remembering the content
later.

So, sketchnoting, you can use visual elements
and you're

using your handwriting and later you'll hopefully
have an

even better chance of remembering the content
that you're

trying to capture.

So all of that stuff I just told you

is what you're gonna tell your boss to prove

that you're not doodling in the meetings.
The real

reason to sketchnote is that it's just fun.
I

love talking about it. People love looking
at notes.

I like looking at my notes. I think it's

a really great practice, and really I just
don't

need an excuse. I try to find out a

way that I can do it whenever I can.

So let's get to the good stuff. Like you're,

maybe you're thinking, Jess, I can't draw.
I hear

this all the time, and it's the reason why

I'm giving my talk today. And I'm gonna debunk

this in one slide. So what do you see

up here? We've got some shapes. If you can

draw any of these shapes, then you can sketchnote.

If you can't draw these shapes, please come
find

me. We will pair. I am willing to take

the time to practice with you and we can

get this done.

Using these shapes, and practicing, is how
you're gonna

sketchnote. You use lines, arrows, to connect
ideas. Use

the boxes and the clouds to add emphasis.
Those

shapes also form the basis, if you want to

like, go and do some illustrations or icons,
these

are all the fundamental building blocks that
you need.

You're also gonna need some other tools. This
is

what I like to call my sketchnoting config
file.

I prefer to use a plain sketchbook. I use

moleskin. Something with heavy paper. I'm
a very hamfisted

drawer and, you know, I write really heavy,
so

I don't want it to bleed.

I use a uniball pen for most of the

writing. It's very smooth. Something like
a roller ball.

I know people that like gel pens. There's
a

couple of other art pens in there that I

use for bolder notes. And I've been using
a

FaverCastle artist's pen for shading.

So, kind of pick what works for you. A

lot of people like to start out with grid

paper, too, because if you feel like you can't

write in straight line, then the grid lines
kind

of help you keep everything in place.

And, obviously, like I talked earlier about
some of

the electronic devices that you can use. So
if,

you know, it makes you feel better to use

an iPad, then, you know, absolutely go for
it.

So here are some sketchnotes of mine where
you

can see some of those building blocks being
used.

We've got a cloud and some arrows and lines

and boxes. That's pretty much all you need.

So here's the good part, right. How do you

actually do this? And for this I'm gonna turn

to one of my favorite poets, Mary Oliver,
who

wrote in "Sometimes," "Instructions for living
a life: Pay

attention. Be astonished. Tell about it."

When I was reading this poem again really
recently,

I thought, these are really good advice for
sketchnoting,

as well. So how do we pay attention?

The very first thing I want to tell people

about sketchnoting is that it's not about
drawing, it's

about listening. It requires active listening
to really focus

on what the speaker's talking about. Sketchnoting
helps you

focus on the important parts of a presentation.

Listening is different than thinking. Sometimes
a speaker might

be talking about something controversial,
maybe other ideas come

up in your head while they're, while they're
speaking.

You don't want to let your emotional reactions
get

in the way of capturing content.

So if you disagree or maybe, I mean, you

might think of something else, or, you know,
oh

I wish he'd said this, like. Eh. You don't

want to let that get in the way. You

really want to focus on what the speaker is

saying, and then let the emotion come later.

I also advise to follow the speaker and not

the slides. We live in an age where most

speakers are gracious enough to share their
slides on

the internet with us later, so you can kind

of get that content if you need to later,

most of the time. The good stuff's not gonna

be on the slides, though. The good stuff is

gonna be with the speaker. You have one moment

to be in the presentation with them and to

really hear what they're saying.

If you know a speakers' style, it's a little

bit easier to plan your notes. I've been going

to enough tech conferences that I kind of
get

an idea ahead of time. DHH is gonna be

super colorful and crazy and controversial.
Aaron Patterson loves

to tell a story, there's like, cool jokes
in

there. Glenn Vanderberg. Great storyteller.
Very linear format. So,

as you practice, you'll kind of get an idea

for that.

I would follow the speaker's body language.
Their speech

patterns. Maybe they like to take dramatic
pauses. It's

a time for you to slow down, also, and

pay attention to what they're saying.

So how do you listen for key points? This

is pretty hard. It's, you know, requires some
multi-tasking.

Firstly, I would avoid summarizing everything.
I think when

you first start sketching, it's really tempting
to try

to get everything on paper. You don't want
to

miss stuff. But you kinda gotta let that go.

The talk title is the first clue to what

the important content is gonna be. But it's
not

always, you know, accurate. Sometimes the
speaker's gonna be

really cool and nice and tell you ahead of

time what they're gonna cover. You know, the
opening

slide, and say, I've got three things that
I'm

gonna go over today. But you're not always
gonna

be able to rely on that.

So one thing I like to tell people is,

if you had your phone out and you weren't

taking sketchnotes right now, what would you
Tweet about?

So anything that you listen to that you're
like,

man, that's really awesome, that's what you
want to

get down in your sketchnotes.

So we're in a technical conference. I'm talking
to

developers who want to do this. There's gonna
be

a lot of demos and live coding, and my

advice to you is don't sketch it. I tried

to do it once. It's really hard. I tried

to actually, you know, sketch code samples.
It's, it's

really hard. It's also gonna look kind of
boring

cause it's code.

If you do want to sketchnote during a demo,

though, I think there's still some tips you
can,

you can follow. You want to listen for gems

of advice. Usually there's a reason why somebody's
demoing.

They want to show you that something's better
than

something else or, you know, kind of go through

a problem-solving exercise. Maybe there's
code libraries, gems, plugins,

that are mentioned during a talk that you've
never

heard of before. I usually like to jot those

down to go look up later.

A lot of times, pros and cons. You know,

obviously, if somebody's showing off something
that they did,

they might say this is better than this other

way. Those are things that you might want
to

capture as well.

It's virtually impossible to write as fast
as somebody

can speak. So sometimes you need a back-up
plan.

I like to carry around some scratch paper.
I

advise using post-its to just kind of like
jot

down ideas real quick, in case you can't keep

up with the speaker's speech. There's usually
also lulls

between the main ideas. People pausing between
all of

their main points. That's also a good time
to

kind of go back and fill in, if you

missed something earlier.

You can also use post-its to hold on to

a note or an idea while you're waiting for

the connection. Sometimes they'll bring up
the problem and

talk about the solution later, and you want
to

just, like, hold onto that thought.

Also, sometimes, I mean, you might not want
to

commit an idea right away. Like, maybe something
better

is gonna come up next, so you can use

the post-it to sort of be a placeholder and

a backup plan in case that following idea
doesn't

pan out for you.

It's also important to be astonished. You
might want

to share your notes with the world and show

them to other people, but ultimately your
notes are

for you. You want to capture what stands out

to you in the moment and not worry about

what anybody else thinks.

Also feel free to fill-in gaps and add your

own sort of notes on the side. I used

to be really worried about capturing what
a speaker

said extremely accurately and I didn't want
to misrepresent

what they said in a talk, and I learned

to sort of let that go, because I need

to remember what they were saying. I need
to

interpret what they were saying. So sometimes,
you know,

I'll write something off to the side just
to,

you know, add in and enhance what they're
saying

so I can remember later.

It's, it's all about listening to what's being
said

and interpreting it in your own way, cause
you

want to remember what happened in the presentation.
It's

really interesting to see that a bunch of
people

can attend the same talk and come out of

it with different things.

These are some sketchnotes by Carolyn Sewell
at Brooklyn

Beta. She went to a talk by Tim O'Reilly.

I went to that same talk and these are

my notes. So vastly different styles.

Other fun things to capture include jokes
and quotes

and f-bombs. If the speaker's funny, capturing
a joke

is a great way to enhance your notes. Like,

I mean, it's what everybody remembers. It's
gonna make

you laugh when you go back and look at

your notes later. Cuss words usually used
for emphasis,

which means that it's something important.
If you want

great colorful notes, I advise going back
and looking

all of DHH's talks in the past.

I also listen for quotable moments. Any time
a

speaker makes a dramatic pause. Maybe they've
repeated a

phrase over and over again. Listening for
metaphors and

similes - that's a great chance for you to

kind of visualize something. The speaker's
doing it for

you. They're giving you a hint. This is like

this. And if you can come up with an

image that captures that, that's a good way
to

enhance your notes as well.

So, speaking of f-bombs, these are some notes
by

Erin Hawkins. This talk looks like it was
really

fun to go to.

Another thing you can do is create your own

visual language. And that means kind of coming
up

with a style or some sort of cue that

helps you remember certain things in, in a
talk.

So what's an example of a visual language?
Maybe

if you're trying to take direct quotes from
a

speaker you can use quote marks. Speech bubbles
for

direct quotes. Question bubbles for maybe
something, a question

you asked yourself and you want to look up

later. Like, an eye in a circle for info

or tips. I read on a blog somewhere that

this girl likes to put titles of books inside

a picture of a book, so she knows when

she scans through her notes if she wants to

go buy a book later, she can find it

very quickly.

So here's some examples of Eva-Lotta Lamm's
notes, and

she's using little highlighted quotes everywhere.
It's an easy

way to pick out the speaker's direct, direct
quotations.

And sometimes, you're gonna listen to a talk,
and

the content's still not gonna stick, is not
gonna

stick. And there's always a backup plan for
that

too. I went to this keynote. It was way

over my head. You know. Sometimes you just
gotta

be in the moment and you can't get it

on paper.

So, the last step is to tell people about

it. I really think it's important to share
your

notes. I think it's a great way to continue

the dialogue after a conversation. I use Twitter
as

the, as the main avenue for my notes. I

always use the conference hash tag and at
mention

the speaker.

You can also upload to places like Flicker
or

Instagram or Dribble. There's a blog called
sketchnote army

which is run by Mike Rhody. He takes submissions.

You can just Tweet at him. You can email

him. But he's also got a comittee of people

that go around the internet looking for sketchnotes,
whether

it's on Flicker or Twitter, and then he features

them on his blog. And, and it's really a

nice way to, you know, share with people,
but

also, like, thank the speaker.

Speaking of thanking the speaker, they're
gonna be really

grateful if you share your notes. I didn't
actually

realize that this was a thing until about
last

year when I was, like, really getting going
with

this. And people were Tweeting back at me,
like,

thank you so much, this is amazing. And it's,

it's kind of weird that I didn't think that

it was something that other people would care
about.

But it's nice to have an artifact of your

talk when you leave. It's also nice that people

are talking about your talk after you leave.
You

kind of want that, so sketchnotes are a good

way to, I think, thank the speaker and prove

that you were there and you really listened
and,

like, captured the information.

A lot of times in your sketchnotes, you'll
realize

that you capture information that the speaker
didn't even

intend. They didn't think it was that important
and

then, you know, here you're getting feedback
from people

saying, no, this was really cool.

Your boss will also be impressed. I think.
No

one else in your meeting is probably gonna
be

taking sketchnotes. You know, you're gonna
capture different ideas,

and it's a good way to enhance, like, team

dialogue, when you're like, sketching out
ideas or thinking

about, like, really hard problems. Sketchnotes
will add, like,

a diversity to the conversation.

So this isn't all. There are some actual practical

tips that I can pass on to you. The

first one is to get comfortable. I always
go

to a meeting or a talk early to find

a good seat. The aisle is great for elbow

room. It's not so great for people flowing
into

the room and you constantly have to get up

and interrupted. So I actually recommend a
middle seat.

I also try to tell people to find a

good light source. They'll dim the lights
in a

lot of conferences, so you want to try to

find some way that you can look at your

sketch book.

I'm also that jerk that will put my purse

on the seat next to me so I have

some room. I'm sorry Marty. I mean. You know,

it's really hard when you're squished in and
people

are sitting next to you and typing on their

laptops. You know, sometimes it's nice to
have a

little bit of elbow room.

I think also getting to a talk early means

that you can write down the speaker's name,
their

Twitter handle, the title. Get that stuff
out of

the way so that you're ready to go when

they start.

It's also important to slow down. When I did

a practice run of this talk at Shopify, some

people came up to me and said, well my

hand handwriting's really bad. So what do
I do

about that? And I advised this person to slow

down and write your letters as if you're drawing

them. When you slow down, you have to be

deliberate about it.

Also, trying to draw larger letters will force
you

to slow down, and I think make you really

pay attention to your writing. When, if you're
doing

your normal handwriting it's easy to just
go really

fast and it, you know, turns out a little

bit sloppy. So if you slow down, I think

it really helps.

Also, try to play with layouts. You know,
normally

when we're writing just regular notes on pen
and

paper, we're going top down. I think, kind
of

stepping outside of your comfort zone and
trying something

different will really help. There's different
ways to do

that. I tend to do sort of a popcorn

style, where I just fill in notes anywhere
there's

space on my page.

People can also do columns. It's really great
for

panels. You can do a radial style, where maybe

you start in the middle and sort of map

out, kind of like mind maps. There's also
sort

of the winding story lane sort of style. You

can go left to right, left to right.

But, basically it's important to try to challenge
yourself

and do something different. So these are some
examples

from Veronica Erb, again, doing sort of a
radial

style. You can see like the title up at

the top and she's sort of going out.

And the decoration last. This is gonna be
really

tempting, too, when you're sketchnoting. You
want to make

it look really pretty and you're trying to
capture

everything. But I said before, you know, there's
always

these moments in the talk where people are
pausing

or maybe transitioning or maybe the speaker's
kind of

boring for a little while. And you can use

that time to sort of add all those boxes

and arrows and shading that you weren't able
to

capture earlier.

And you can also use your post-its, again,
to

keep that backlog and sort of, you know, help

you pace yourself if you can't fill up the

space. I like to go back after the talk,

as well, just really quickly, before I share,
just

to sort of add some more detail and boldness

if I'm, like, reflecting on the talk and sort

of realizing that something was extra important,
I'll try

to go back and, and add some embellishment.

It's also important to embrace mistakes. Especially
if you're

live sketchnoting, it's gonna happen. There's
no way to

get around it. It can be really scary to,

to use a pen and paper. You might want

to use pencil but I really encourage you to

just go ahead and use pen. I bring a

bold marker just in case I need to fix

something really crazy. But be OK with scratching
out

a word. If you didn't spell it right the

first time or if it was wrong, it's, it's

totally OK.

So here are some notes that I took and

there's like smudges and this word right here,
that

was the first time I spelled entrepreneurs
wrong. I

tried again. I still spelled it wrong. Like,
so

it's gonna happen. Like.

As with anything, practice makes better. There's
some ways

you can do that. I advice people to start

out with already recorded conference talks,
like TED talks.

Do it in your meetings at work. Even reality

TV. I have sketchnoted Real Housewives before.
It's really

fun.

Watching videos at home on your own takes
the

pressure off of live sketchnoting a little
bit. You've

got a pause button. You can sort of figure

out your pace. As you practice, you'll also
get

a really good sense of how much information
you

can capture in a given amount of time.

I used to take up two pages for every

single talk no matter how long the content
was.

I have no gotten everything down to a page,

like, whether it's an hour and a half talk

or a thirty minute talk. And so as you

practice you'll sort of find, you know, your
own

style.

Here are some of my notes. Name the movie.

So some notes by MJ Valente. She was sketchnoting

a BBC episode.

Get inspired. When we all started out developing,
what

did we do? We just copied other peoples' code

and then we tried to make it better. And

I advise doing the same thing for sketchnoting.
I,

when I first started, just went on the internet,

just through Flicker everyday looking for
other peoples' styles

that I liked, and I tried to just copy

it.

As you become more comfortable, you'll find
your own

style. But it's OK, because even if you're
trying

to copy somebody else's style, it's never
gonna look

exactly like theirs. So it's always gonna
be your

own.

Some good resources for that include Sketchnote
Army, like

I said before. There is a hash tag on

flicker and there's various user groups on
Flicker devoted

just to sketchnoting. I actually found a bunch
of

boards on Pinterest, so that's another great
resource.

So experimentation is how you're gonna find
your own

style. And what I advise doing is start with

the copying, and then copy another persons'
style and

then copy another persons' style and start
mixing and

matching, and you'll sort of find your happy
place.

I mean, I spent a lot of time trying

to, to match Paul Soupiset's handwriting.
I've never gotten

it quite right.

But I've taken elements of what all of my

favorite sketchnoters do and tried to add
them to

my own.

Mike Rohde wrote a book that covers a lot

more than what I was able to tell you

today. This book is amazing. It's actually
got some

really great hands on exercises that you can
do.

I highly recommend it.

So at the end of this talk, I've sat

here and I've told you all about how to

do this, and you're like, Jess, I still can't

draw. You haven't told me how to draw. But

that's OK. Cause you can sketchnote. So please
go

do that.

OK. So the question was this talk focused
on

sketchnoting for yourself, and is there any
advice for

communicating with other people?

Yeah. I mean, I think, like, I, I mentioned

different ways or, different places that you
can sketchnote.

I sketchnote in my meetings at work. I don't

do a great job of sharing them with everyone.

Nick, I'll do that next week. It is, I

think that is a good way. Sharing them actually

helps other people, too.

You'll find, in meetings, there's not actually
a lot

of people that take notes. I mean, it's kind

of surprising sometimes. We all think we're
gonna remember

when we walk away. So if you're the one

that sketchnotes and you know you find it
fun

and other people find it fun, sharing it right

afterwards is actually really, really helpful.

We've done a lot of whiteboarding sessions,
you know,

people take pictures with their cameras to
capture that.

Your sketchnotes add another layer to that
conversation. And

so I think just bringing all of that together

helps, you know, sort of document what happened
so

people can remember.

Does that answer your question?

Thank you very much.