FAQ: Digital scribing
When I am doing digital scribing, people often ask: What app are you using? What kind of tablet and stylus are those? Are you drawing live or is was it pre-drawn and prepared in advance?
In this short article, I will go through the basic tools I use for digital scribing, to answer some of these questions for those who are interested in learning or are just curious how it’s done.
I use the app Procreate ($9.99 USD in the App Store) on an iPad Pro with the Apple Pencil (second generation). I’m definitely not the only one: most scribes I know who work digitally use these same tools.
If projecting live and real-time — so participants can see the drawing as I am creating it — I connect my iPad to a screen or projector using an HDMI or VGA adaptor. I’ve been using this setup for just over a year, after switching from my laptop and Wacom tablet. I adapted fairly quickly and definitely prefer the iPad Pro. It’s just one device to carry, rather than two (much easier for travel), and Procreate is intuitive to learn. This is important because yes, I am drawing live, by hand! So it’s essential to feel comfortable with the app in order to keep up the pace.
The fundamental scribing process is in many ways very similar, whether digital or analog:
- Preparing as much as possible in advance (reviewing the event agenda and content; understanding who will be present and the objectives; choosing a colour palette and lettering styles, as well as identifying any key images/metaphors to include)
- Listening and drawing, moment to moment
- Displaying the scribed images during the event (creating a feedback loop between the group, the scribe, and the work) and delivering them afterwards
If you are used to scribing on boards or paper and thinking of starting to work digitally, I like this piece of advice I saw recently, from Raquel Benmergui:
“Stop wanting your tablet to be paper — embrace digital possibilities.”
It’s interesting to take advantage of the unique range of options that a digital medium opens up, instead of trying to replicate our work on paper or other analog surfaces. We can experiment and try different techniques, including opportunities in terms of our listening and synthesis, and the value it allows us to bring to the groups we work with. There are advantages and disadvantages to working digitally, so it’s important to start from the objectives of each client and the conditions of each session to define whether digital scribing is the most appropriate option.
Advantages
- Working digitally means fewer materials used (e.g. paper, markers, tape, and especially foam core – which never breaks down, etc.) and it also eliminates the need for shipping those materials (although in terms of the environmental impact, the iPad has its own footprint of course, which Apple is working to reduce)
- Increased visibility during events, with screen projection
- Flexibility (the scribe can work in layers, erase, move and resize elements, as well as export images in several different formats directly from Procreate)
- Easy distribution of clean, high-resolution images during and after events (in print, or online via social networks, or if the organizers are using an app for the event, images can be shared that way)
- Agile delivery process after the event (you can skip the steps of scanning or photographing and cleaning analog images)
- Endless kinds of brushes and textures in Procreate (there are over 130 available in the app and you can create or import your own as well), and the option to integrate other visual elements like typography and photos
- Video recording of the drawing in process: Procreate can record your drawing and export in 4K, so you have an ‘animated’ version of the scribe’s work (note: may require a little editing since every stroke is recorded, including things you draw and erase, or move)
Disadvantages
- You lose the presence of the drawing as a physical artifact in the space
- No original, hand-made drawings to deliver to the client (but if you work in high resolution or vector, you can print large copies)
- The contact and interaction between scribe and the group changes, when the scribe is seated, hunched over an iPad vs. standing and drawing (I think the “traditional” graphic recording style is somehow more transparent and easier for people to understand because they can see how it is being made; whereas digital is a bit more mysterious, for some people)
Curious to hear others’ thoughts on the advantages and disadvantages of digital scribing. What have you experienced? As a participant in a session, or as a scribe yourself.
Thank you for reading!
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