Consultants don't want to use Consultant Notes projects

Question

The Translation Consultants in our area don’t seem to want to use the Consultant Notes projects. They prefer to use a standard Paratext project, which they just open in a separate window. I’ve tried to pin down the reasons why they don’t want to use a window with the consultant notes open instead. The use case is having personal notes to prepare for a consultant check. So they aren’t so much attaching a note to a particular word or phrase in a source text, but just including thoughts of how to translate the verse or passage. So the fact that a consultant note is always attached to some source text that always shows up in the note means more information to wade through. With a standard project they can see more information at a time. So for example, here are two consultant notes:

image965×285 44.6 KB

Whereas in a standard project, all of that information would be on two lines:

\v 1 can add 'and his disciples' if desired
\v 4 allow, permit - not a command

Admittedly you don’t have the potential benefit of seeing the underlying text (in French, in this case), but that doesn’t seem to be too important to them.

So I’m wondering, would it be possible to make the notes display more compact? It seems like the author and date could be shifted up to be next to the reference, and maybe some of the extra vertical space could be removed? Also, as there is the option to check/uncheck “Edit notes in Notes list”, maybe there could be an option to check/uncheck “Show source text of note”, which would remove that line from the view and allow more notes to be seen at a time.

Just some thoughts for how we might get better acceptance of the use of Consultant Notes projects.

Answer 1

I am not a ______________________ but I am very new at consulting so take my opinions with caution.

I used to think they were disembodied and did not like it that they did not have flags like normal notes. That is the reason I first stopped using them, but once I learned from my Mentoring Consultant that you can select “Show consultant notes” in the project menu, I tried to use them again. However I ran into a few issues.

1. Double clicking them does not open them up like it does a normal note. So if I want to comment on one, I have to already have my Consultant Notes List open and then press open before I can edit it. Otherwise it opens the Consultant Notes List in a tiny window which I have to then resize and press open before I can edit it.

2. When you hover over the flag, it just says there is a note, not what the note actually says which is unlike normal notes.

I normally create a copy of the project for my own use and insert tons of normal notes. This way I can keep track of which ones are still pending (by not resolving them) and which ones were dealt with satisfactorily (by resolving them). Thus, I am able to quickly see which notes are still pending without having to sort through all the notes I have created for the project.
Then if there is a note that might be useful in another project, I add it to my consultant note project. But this is also a bit irritating for the following reasons.

1. Every time you move a note, it tells you that only the first comment will be moved. There is no way to say, “do not tell me again” or “do not tell me for ‘x’ amount of time/days”.
2. It only copies the first comment. Therefore, I have to manually add anything else I need even though it is already there in the original note.

If it is feasible I think having a resolve for this project button would be nice. Since then I can use my Consultants Notes in the same way I use normal notes to see what issues are still pending, but I can still access it for other projects when it would be useful.

Comments

@Generic.User Did you know that you can use the multinote tool to share a note with one or more projects? Consultant notes also have a copy note feature that can be used to make a copy of a consultant note and paste it in a project as a regular note. You could also consider having more than one consultant notes projects. One could be reserved for only those items that require action by the team.

Answer 2

Hi jeffh,

This is good timing.

I need to be gathering requirements for improving notes, including consultant notes. Would you like to become one of our user champions for gathering requirements?

anon892024

Comments

I’ve actually spent a lot of time discussing with consultants why they don’t use this and I’ve collected some feedback. Funny thing, is that I don’t recall jeffh’s reason being mentioned as one of them. In any case, I really believe that we need a complete redesign of Consultant notes. I will be happy to look for my collected responses and submit them to the group working on this.

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I rely on the consultant notes feature of Paratext during the pre-processing and typesetting phase of Scripture publication. It is extremely valuable to me to have the notes tied down to the verse in question and have a complete record of the interactions to refer to later.

My team who works with me to assist various projects during pre-processing, however, does not like to work with the notes because of the tedium in reviewing and resolving notes.

I do agree with them that this can become very tedious but the value of those specific notes tied to not only verses but specific words and phrases is more important to me. Anything that can be done to make working with the Notes List easier and faster, including bulk actions would be greatly appreciated.

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I have been given several reasons. The most common is that they do not like that the notes are “disembodied” from a text. Some still use an empty project and type their observations there. It is easy and scrolls with the vernacular text. I think an overriding problem is that of feature fatigue. We have projects, resources, enhanced resources, project notes, and consultant notes (and more) that all have their own features and behavior. Many users do not have the bandwidth to keep current with all the types of resources/notes that are available. They don’t like that they have to remember how consultant notes are different from project notes every time they want to write one. I struggle myself at times to keep current on all the features.

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dhigby, I have a LOT of ideas about functionality and use cases. The most pressing is training quality workers. And there is a large amount of overlap with improving Lists (.ref) and perhaps Notes Lists. I have not had time to put in updated requests and cases but I would love to have a discussion both with UX and function folks.

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@Shegnada we are referring to the “Consultant Notes” project. These notes don’t get resolved. But you point out another issue with the Consultant notes projects… this very confusion between Project notes and Consultant notes.

Answer 3

I’m very glad jeffh is encouraging use of PT Consultant Notes (cn), and am surprised the link with the source text is the sticking point (though I agree the current layout wastes space, with the author name on a separate line). I do tremble a little, though, at the idea of a major cn revamp. I have over 6,000 cns from scores of different projects, mostly connected to individual words or expressions in the Hebrew or Greek text - that’s a big data set representing many thousands of hours of work over many years. So the move (in 2011?) from TNE to cn was very painful, as data and functionalities were lost in the process (and even now, I often have to use other programs to edit the xml file). Let me at least urge you (who’re all with SIL) to find out what the most common practices are in other organisations. If most of the people who’re not using a certain functionality are white westerners over 50, their personal preferences on technology use and work patterns may be less relevant to strategies for the future (after all, we were all using the ‘empty project’ strategy back in 2000!). And those who are the future (younger non-westerners) may just not yet have been trained in the whole idea of writing cns at all (though the TCs I supervise certainly do use PT cns!). In the face of the general ‘speeding up and dumbing down’ of our work, good tools can keep quality issues on the table!

Answer 4

Please be careful not to blow up Consultants Notes without due diligence. Yes, they need to be reworked but they are extremely valuable as is. There are MANY use cases so let’s not chop off one person’s leg to give someone else an arm [I see AWR WR beat me to that point!]

That said, jeffh’s comments about screen use is very helpful. I have had discussions with Microsoft on how much wasted space certain of their products have. We can be targeted and thoughtful regarding both function and layout.

Milt_Jones

Comments

Nothing will happen without due diligence, but we will look at this and change some things. The focus group will guide us.

If anyone wants to be part of the focus group that helps us understand the real requirements, what should be changed, and what should be kept, please let me know.

anon892024

Answer 5

I just want to affirm what AWR is saying. I use the CNs for my reports after project visits, and while it is a bit awkward to filter the note material so that it fits a report format, I find it works well.

My main request would be to start to collect and curate again all the CNs that have yet to be submitted to the global CN list, or that have been submitted and not acted upon. I alone have several thousand of these, and if we were to include a curated up-to-date list, the GCN database would be impressive indeed (and might take away the criticism that the GCNs do not cover enough of the biblical text to be reliably useful).

Answer 6

@anon044949 I was using the multinote tool. My second two issues were about using that. Sorry I did not make that clear.

As for the ability to change Consultant Notes into Project Notes, I was not aware that could be done. I looked in the help and I could not find the topic.

As for having two Consultant Notes Projects, once they completed an action I would still need to move or mark the Consultant Note as completed and then that bring me back to my previous issues.

Answer 7

I’m currently preparing to check multiple projects. When I write a note for one project and then realize that it applies to all the projects, I use the Multi button to add it to the other projects. Is there a way to have Paratext realize there is only one comment and therefore no need to give the warning that only the first comment will be put in the other projects?