Designing NotebookLM
jasonspielman.com
Designing NotebookLM
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Re: Designing NotebookLM
#2[deleted]
Re: Designing NotebookLM
#3I'm curious from people who use it regularly. What do you use it for? Aside from audio overviews, what does it do better for you compared to vanilla chat interfaces or docs integration?
Re: Designing NotebookLM
#4I'm curious from people who use it regularly. What do you use it for? Aside from audio overviews, what does it do better for you compared to vanilla chat interfaces or docs integration?
I use it to turn an arxiv paper or hacker news comment section + interesting long form OP, plus maybe other sources, into a podcast that I can listen to on my commute.
Re: Designing NotebookLM
#5I'm curious from people who use it regularly. What do you use it for? Aside from audio overviews, what does it do better for you compared to vanilla chat interfaces or docs integration?
A friend uses it to create quizzes and flashcards when studying for uni
Re: Designing NotebookLM
#6I don't care much for NotebookLM's UX. I find the layout confusing, the concepts conveyed in the UI not very intuitive. I feel like the power of what's under the hood doesn't translate very well into the frontend.
That said, this article was a very nice overview. Clean page, interesting to see his perspective. He clearly took tare and thought about the project. I don't agree with his conclusions and results, but that's just one user. Hopefully we see more thoughtful approaches. The space moving so quickly doesn't exactly foster a craftsman-like care in design.
Re: Designing NotebookLM
#7This post has the same issues as NotebookLM for me -- overdesigned, overengineered for what at its core is a simple and valuable UX.
NotebookLM: obviously useful, but I just wanna select some files and chat w/ them or have them summarized for me. It's got low info density, way too many cards/buttons/sections/icons, and it makes the core UX really difficult for me to navigate.
This post: I wanted to know what cool thoughts he had while designing it. Instead I get some weird scrolljacking, image carousels, unnecessary visual hierarchy, cards galore, etc.
Not trying to be too negative, it's slick and all but it just gets in the way for me instead of disappearing.
Re: Designing NotebookLM
#8NotebookLM has been one of the more useful projects I've used. Being able to focus a language processing model directly to the content you're looking for is really useful.
I currently support a data application where the vendor's documentation for it is not particularly well organized. It's spread across dozens of PDFs, sometimes without particularly well reasoned organization. Dumping all those PDFs into NotebookLM has been extremely useful since it allows us to ask questions that either give us answers, or are immediately fruitless requiring us to contact the vendor. Having an LLM capable of processing all that text has been great.
I've also used it with tabletop roleplaying game manuals. It's especially useful for badly organized TTRPGs, or those with poor indexing. Being able to type a question out in the middle of a game and getting an answer without having to dig through the book and find it yourself can be really very useful.
What I've never found a use for is anything in the Studio pane. They're neat tools, but... it's never been anything I've wanted or needed.
Re: Designing NotebookLM
#9I'm curious from people who use it regularly. What do you use it for? Aside from audio overviews, what does it do better for you compared to vanilla chat interfaces or docs integration?
I use it to turn an arxiv paper or hacker news comment section + interesting long form OP, plus maybe other sources, into a podcast that I can listen to on my commute.
Yeah, those audio overviews can be useful! The interface has a bunch of other features too, so I am hoping to hear more about those too. I'm not affiliated, just curious.
Re: Designing NotebookLM
#10I don't care much for NotebookLM's UX. I find the layout confusing, the concepts conveyed in the UI not very intuitive. I feel like the power of what's under the hood doesn't translate very well into the frontend. That said, this article was a very nice overview. Clean page, interesting to see his perspective. He clearly took tare and thought about the project. I don't agree with his conclusions and results, but that…
Do you use an alternative? I haven't explored the space much.