1 ButterflyNet: A Mobile Capture and Access System for Field Biology Research

Through a study of field biology practices, we observed that biology fieldwork generates a wealth of qualitative and quantitative information requiring substantial labor to coor-dinate and distill. Biologists rely on their notebooks as the primary record of observations, plans, measurements, and results. These observations motivated ButterflyNet, a sys-tem that integrates paper notes with information explicitly captured and ambiently available in field sites: digital pho-tographs, sensor network data, and GPS. Through Butter-flyNet, the activity of leafing through a notebook expands to browsing all synchronously created media. Butter-flyNet’s integrated interactions facilitate the transfer of notebook content to spreadsheets and maintain data lineage. It also enables biologists to share their work with other members of their lab. A first-use study with 14 biologists found this system to offer richer capture with minimal overhead, in a manner felicitous with current practice