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Help balloons - for just 4 seconds?


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  • Level 5

Yes, I admit I failed the Evelyn Wood speed reading course in elementary school. But Evernote expects me to read and understand their help pop-up screens in less than 5 seconds.

For example:
>Tools >Options >Note >Set new note focus to title

"Check this note to set the focus to the note's title instead of the note's body when creating a new note. When an untitled note is saved, the first line of the note's body is used as the note's title, so you don't need to specify the title specifically." 

According to my stopwatch, I have 4.1 seconds to read and understand the 49 words that pop up on my desktop computer before they disappear.

That works out to a blistering 717 words per minute - which is particularly difficult considering the technical nature of the topic. "Average readers only reach around 200 wpm with a typical comprehension of 60%."

And screen captures do not work on these popups. 

I don't consider this to be optimistic, clever, confident or clear. 

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  • Level 5*
15 minutes ago, jbenson2 said:

Yes, I admit I failed the Evelyn Wood speed reading course in elementary school. But Evernote expects me to read and understand their help pop-up screens in less than 5 seconds.

For example:
>Tools >Options >Note >Set new note focus to title

"Check this note to set the focus to the note's title instead of the note's body when creating a new note. When an untitled note is saved, the first line of the note's body is used as the note's title, so you don't need to specify the title specifically." 

According to my stopwatch, I have 4.1 seconds to read and understand the 49 words that pop up on my desktop computer before they disappear.

That works out to a blistering 717 words per minute - which is particularly difficult considering the technical nature of the topic. "Average readers only reach around 200 wpm with a typical comprehension of 60%."

And screen captures do not work on these popups. 

I don't consider this to be optimistic, clever, confident or clear. 

Well, it is optimistic... ?

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  • Level 5*

This is, however, consistent with the design of the reminder popups that show up for 10 seconds tops and you are expected to be at your computer staring at the system tray area to read them when they happen.

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  • Level 5*
3 minutes ago, EdH said:

This is, however, consistent with the design of the reminder popups that show up for 10 seconds tops and you are expected to be at your computer staring at the system tray area to read them when they happen.

I would suggest rotating the behavior, 10 seconds for pop-ups wth 4 and gone for reminders (since not used anyway).  ?  Apologies, couldn't help myself.,

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The problem is we're using standard Windows tooltips. For something with that much text, it should be a different control. Or we need to convince our loquacious copy editors to be a little more terse...

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