Capacities: connect scattered notes through a project
Capacities is a personal note-taking and knowledge management tool. It organizes meetings, people and projects as connected objects, helping you return from a topic to the records related to it.
Form your own approach first, then explore the reasoning to check trade-offs and validation you may have missed. There is no single right answer.
01
DESIGN QUESTION
Explain an empty related-records area
Suppose you are designing a personal note-taking tool. A user has written two meeting notes and created a “Cafe redesign” project page, but has not linked the notes to the project. Its “Related records” area only says “No content,” so the user thinks the notes have disappeared.
- Task: Redesign the message and one action in this empty area to help the user understand how to make existing notes appear here. The tool already supports opening notes and linking a project from within a note. Change only the empty area.
- Deliver: Make a simple sketch with the message and button text. Add one observation task to check whether a user can associate “First menu discussion” with the current project.
Explore the reasoning
- Explain that this area is waiting for linked records, so an empty list does not suggest deleted content.
- Connect the message and action to the existing operations, showing where to begin and what to do.
- Ask a tester to associate the named note using only the sketch, and observe whether the next step is clear.