Overview
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This is Google Keep
Google Keep has always stood out for its speed and simplicity, a frictionless tool that fits naturally into the Google ecosystem. But for users who rely on it daily, it eventually reaches a ceiling. Limited formatting, a disorganized toolbar, and a tag system that doubles as folders make it difficult to scale beyond casual notetaking. This project explores a set of strategic UX/UI enhancements designed to expand Keep's organizational capabilities and introduce greater depth, evolving it into a tool that supports both quick capture and more comprehensive workflows, while preserving the simplicity that defines it.
Simplicity: A Strength & Weakness
Google Keep's greatest strength is also its most significant design constraint. Google Keep is not built to be a comprehensive note-taking platform with extensive list of features. It's built to be fast, lightweight, and accessible being a place to capture a thought before it disappears, reliably everywhere and available offline. That simplicity isn't a limitation to fix but instead pushing its design ceiling involving users who eventually run into friction that the product wasn't designed to address. Not because Keep failed them, but because it stopped growing with them. The challenge of this project wasn't simply "add more features to Google Keep." It was a more precise design question:
How could we create a platform that is recognizable and offers a solution to the diverse target audience?
Goals
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Create an Organized Note-taking Space
Keep's existing structure makes it difficult to maintain clarity as a note library grows. The primary goal was to introduce an organization system with folder hierarchies, tag separation, sidebar navigation that provide structure without overwhelming the simplicity of the core experience.
Improve Note-taking Experiences
Expand the tools available during note creation through richer formatting, structured layouts, and Gemini-assisted input modes to support more comprehensive and reusable notes. The aim was to deepen Keep's capabilities without pushing it into full productivity app territory.
Reduce Clutter & Wasted Notes
Address the accumulation of stale, unused notes that dilute the relevance of the workspace over time. Through AI-assisted archiving, prioritization features, and smarter surfacing of active notes, the goal was to keep the workspace lean and focused without permanently discarding anything.
Users
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Quick Notetaker
Often take notes for quick momentary need, jotting down quickly and not purposeful for long-term relevance. Speed and accessibility focused but creates a backlog of completed or irrelevant notes.
Standardized Notetaker
Intend to use notetaking apps to be references, updates, and built upon that requires formatting, organization, and hierarchy. With the goal being structure and scalability that allows growth and management.
Kinesthetic Notetaker
A user who uses the non-standard notetaking formats for voice memos, images, and sketching. Using multiple applications for flexibility of these notetaking formats to access many features.
User Personas
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Eric R.
Quick Notetaker
Electrician
Philadelphia, PA
Goals
Capture notes quickly without interrupting his workflow
Surface old notes when relevant and archive what's no longer needed
Pain Points
Old notes pile up and crowd out new ones
No easy way to automatically archive completed reminders
Finding a specific old note requires manual search if not viable in search engine
Charlie L.
Standardized Notetaker
Software Engineer
San Jose, CA
Goals
Maintain a structured, navigable note library
Prioritize frequently used notes without losing access to others
Pain Points
Tags functioning as folders creates disorganization at scale
Limited formatting makes longer structured notes difficult to read
No clear hierarchy between note types or categories
Jenny K.
Kinesthetic Notetaker
Fashion Designer
Manhattan, NY
Goals
Capture ideas in multiple formats without switching between apps
Access and share visual notes seamlessly across devices
Pain Points
Drawing tools are too simple for meaningful sketches
Voice memo functionality isn't robust enough for deep insight
Sharing multi-format notes requires exporting to other platforms
Exploration
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Apple Notes
Apple Notes maintains a clean and accessible interface while offering meaningful depth: folder organization, rich text formatting, collaboration, drawing tools, and deep Apple ecosystem integration including Siri and iCloud. For Apple device users, it presents the most direct competition to Keep, offering comparable speed with significantly more organizational capability. Its weakness is ecosystem lock-in as it offers little value outside of Apple devices.
What Keep can learn: Organizational depth and formatting richness don't have to come at the cost of simplicity. Apple Notes proves both can coexist.
Obsidian
Obsidian sits at the opposite end of the spectrum it being highly customizable, plugin-driven platform built for power users who want complete control over their knowledge system. Offering graph view, bidirectional linking, and markdown support that surpasses as a highly capable note-taking tool. However, its complexity creates a steep learning curve that excludes casual users entirely. It is purpose-built for a specific type of notetaker Keep has never tried to serve.
What Keep can learn: Obsidian's depth is also its barrier, a reminder that Keep's simplicity is a feature, not a flaw when an abundance of features is provided without intentional hierarchy.
One Note
OneNote mirrors the structure of a physical binder; notebooks, sections, and pages that offers a familiar organizational structure with Microsoft 365 integration. It supports rich media, handwriting, drawing, and collaboration, making it a strong choice for workplace and academic environments. Like its depth can provide the organization platform for Microsoft users, but for those seeking a lightweight solution, and its interface has inconsistency across platforms.
What Keep can learn: A clear organizational structure; notebooks and sections give users an intuitive mental model for managing large note libraries.
Roadblock
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Taskbar & Platform Responsiveness
One of the key design goals during ideation was translating Keep's experience coherently across desktop and mobile. The original Google Keep already behaves differently between iOS and Android, when introducing the customizable taskbar it created a new layer of complexity. A desktop toolbar with persistent, user-configured actions doesn't map cleanly onto a mobile interface with limited screen real estate. The core tension was around how a user initiates a new note on mobile. The original "Take a note..." bar works on desktop where horizontal space allows it, but on mobile it competes with the taskbar and reduces the canvas. Optional layouts were explored between preserving the note bar, condensing it, and removing it entirely in favor of a more focused action system.
Solution
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Improved Condensed FAB System
The final direction replaced the persistent "Take a note..." bar from desktop with a Gemini and an expandable FAB button for mobile, originally inherited from current Android experience. Tapping the FAB reveals four clearly labeled note types - Audio, Image, Board, and Text giving users direct access to every input mode in two taps without crowding the interface. This preserved the speed of the original note bar while creating room for the expanded note type system. The desktop retained its persistent toolbar with customization, keeping the two surfaces distinct but functionally consistent.
Design Breakdown
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A customizable taskbar designed for fast, intentional note creation
The redesigned taskbar provides persistent access to all note types and Gemini, with an edit mode that lets users prioritize their most-used tools. On mobile, the persistent "Take a note..." bar replaced with a Gemini button anchored bottom-left and an expandable FAB bottom-right revealing notetaking capabilities. This preserves speed while reducing friction and visual clutter across both platforms.
A structured system for managing notes at scale
Tags previously functioned as folders, creating clutter and limiting organization for large note libraries. The new sidebar separates folders and tags into two distinct layers, folders for where a note lives, tags for what a note is about with optional note counts for quick visibility. A supporting information architecture map shows how notes flow through the system: from creation to folder assignment, tag application, pinning, and filtering providing scalable structure while remaining lightweight.
Unlocking expressive writing for advanced workflows
Text notes were limited to basic formatting, restricting clarity and long-term usability. Expanded typography including heading levels, paragraph and body styles, text alignment, and font support allows users to create more structured and scannable notes. These controls give users the tools to build notes worth keeping and returning to, reducing abandonment and improving reuse without pushing Keep into Google Docs.
Auto-Organization with Gemini
Gemini reduces the need to manually filter through large note libraries by suggesting tags and folder organization schemes based on existing content patterns.
Layout Suggestions from Gemini
As a note grows in length and complexity, Gemini suggests layouts based on what's being written giving structure to notes before it becomes unwieldy and option to export to Docs.
Final Design
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