Introduction
About 4 years ago, I started building DoNotes as a side project. The aim was primarily to create an ultimate study experience and now, after almost half a decade, I believe that goal is within reach thanks to our tasteful integration of AI, integrated tools and fully-featured medical question bank.
We've made some changes along the way, however, to narrow down and find our niche, we're transitioning to building tools specifically for medical students.
The transition to a medical education app
The main reason why we're switching from a general note-taking app to a med-school focused app is primarily because I started medical school. Using my experience of both learning medicine and web development, I decided to start making tools to improve my (and my peers') education. To facilitate this, I teamed up with two of my closest friends - Safik and Mo - to help form Cognitive Limited: a parent company to both DoNotes and what will now become Cada+. I'm really excited about introducing Cada+, so I'll talk about that first, then the changes and updates we've made to DoNotes.
Introducing Cada+
Cada+ is our take on the medical question bank genre. Our goal is to primarily prepare pre-clinical medical students to pass their exams and enter their clinical years. In the future, we aim to also include tools to aid clinical medical students.
We spent countless hours thoroughly studying existing medical question banks (pun intended) to assemble a list of useful features that are done well, as well as design features we felt were missing. We've spent the past few months realising these features into our product.
Cada+ features two study modes: a simple non-constrained randomised test that progressively gets longer as you complete more questions, and a custom study option that lets you choose how many questions and from which topics.
Our questions are hand-crafted by seasoned medical students as well as significant contributions from medical doctors too to provide the ultimate learning experience. Part of this is also our integrated explanation feature, where an explanation is not only given for why an answer is correct, but why each other answer is incorrect.
Unlike other question banks that focus on just data-interpretation or standard questions, our question bank features a plethora of both. We also include both SBA (single-best answer - like multiple choice) and vSAQ (very short (one or two words/sentence answers) questions.
Integrated study tools
Both DoNotes and Cada+ benefit from the advent of our new feature: integrated study tools. Gone are the days of having to open several seperate tabs to look up the meaning of words, search for standard data and choosing those special characters most keyboards don't have. Now you can just use the tools found in the right sidebar or the magic button if you're on mobile!
DoNotes also features a brand-new version-history feature that lets you compare your current note with previous versions in case you accidentally removed a critical segment.
Welcome to the new DoNotes
These days block-based note-taking is incredibly popular, and we agree that it's really useful! But sometimes some good old-fashioned toolbars are really useful, especially when you're looking for some more complex blocks and don't remember what they're called or don't want to scroll all the way to find them. We've incorporated the best of both worlds, implementing both a slash-menu and a toolbar to fit everyone's needs.
We've also incorporated new collaborative features like comments, suggestions and (of course) live collaboration!
AI
We're proud to announce our all-new integrated AI solution to DoNotes and Cada+. Now you can easily get custom AI-generated summaries of your notes, have complex topics explained in easy-to-understand ways and extend your notes to be more pletniful!
Cada+ benefits from the brand-new Remix button. After completing a question, you will find it in your personal question bank where you can repeat the same question again, or Remix it with AI to generate a very similar question that tests you on the same core concepts without you already knowing the answer!
In conclusion...
In conclusion, our journey with DoNotes has evolved from a simple note-taking experiment into a dedicated suite of tools tailored for medical students. With Cada+ providing a powerful, feature-rich question bank and DoNotes offering an advanced, collaborative note-taking environment, we’re building an ecosystem that combines learning, practice, and innovation. By blending thoughtful design, integrated study tools, and AI-powered support, we aim to redefine how medical students study and succeed.
Thanks for reading, and keep your eyes peeled for the October 31st beta announcement!
- Suleman