Weird Search UI

[jefito 5,598]

Version:  10.97.3-win-ddl-public (20240718185432) Editor: v178.17.7 Service: v2.1.2

What's with the awkward Search UI on the main page of the Windows Evernote client? Just noticed it a couple of days ago. I don't use Evernote as often as I used to, but is this new?

OK, so there's a 'Search' box with a magnifying glass icon, in the left-hand column, above the Note, Task, and Event buttons. It sure looks like a text entry control. I want to enter a search, so I click on that control, and rather than allow me to enter text directly in that control, up pops a new dialog, also with a magnifying glass icon, and covering the original (faux?) text control (and below is some shortcuts for Select Mode - Standard/AI-Powered, RECENT SEARCHES, SAVED SEARCHES, GO TO..., ADD FILTER). Focus is properly set to the new text control (so yay?), but this just seems weird to me, and I mentally startle every time I try to use it, because it's so unexpected and unlike other UI that I'm familiar with.

Wouldn't it be better (i.e., less user-surprising) to just use the original text box, and pop up the RECENT SEARCHES, SAVED SEARCHES, GO TO..., ADD FILTER stuff in a dialog underneath, anchored to the bottom of the text box?

Other quibbles:

• Why, when I click on the Help / Help & Learning or Help / Quick Tour, does it bring up the web client?

I was a Windows developer for a long time, including UI stuff, and this stuff seems like it's just breakin' all the rules, for no good reason...

[VincentC 339]

I click in the search bar on the windows client and this is what I see, with the cursor inside the search box.  Is this what you see?  As far as I know, it has been like this for some time and seems perfectly natural to me  

I rarely use the search box, though.  The Cntl+Q function is fine 99% of my searches; I use it dozens of times a day.  If you're not familiar with it, you might give it a try.

 

Vinnie

 

 

[Boot17 1,534]

They changed it to behave like this when they added the AI-Powered Search. I don't believe there has been too much talk about it in the forums, but there has been some. Here is the thread where I think it was first mentioned soon after the UI change was first implemented: 

 

[jefito 5,598]

Hi VincentC -- thanks for replying. Yes, that's exactly what I see. The thing that's weird for me is that I click in what seems to look like a text entry control on the main screen (labeled 'Search):

Normally, focus would remain there, and you type whatever you want to search for, with maybe some options appearing down below. Instead, a whole new dialog pops up:

The text entry cursor and window focus is now in *that* 'Search' text control. And there's the normal search stuff as noted above.

The jarring thing is that you've typed into what seems to be a text control; the expectation is that your text entry focus would remain there and you would do the search. Plus the 'Search' label moves spatially. More awkwardness. And to display the extra options (Select Mode - Standard/AI-Powered, RECENT SEARCHES, SAVED SEARCHES, GO TO..., ADD FILTER), those should appear under the original text control. Instead, there's the weird effect of clicking in what looks like a text control and having a whole new dialog pop up, when you're just wanting to type some text (text controls let you enter text, they generally don't pop up a dialog; that's what buttons are for). Maybe that thing that I think looks like a text control isn't that at all, but instead, is a button. That's confusing/ambiguous, too -- it looks like a text control. Why does it grow when you resize the left panel? There's no need for it to do so if it's a button; there would be if it's a text control.

Again, I did a fair bit of Windows UI work in the past, with resizable dialogs and such, controls that resize (or not), etc.; this is not good UI, in my opinion.

Me, I would have that be an actual text control, with a grayed out 'Search' label, such as it looks like now. You click in it, and you stay there, the grayed out 'Search' label goes away, and the rest of the actual Search UI (the SELECT MODE Standard / AI-Powered bit, the RECENT SEARCHES bit, SAVED SEARCHES and GOTO... ) pops up, anchored to the bottom of the text control (with resizability and all), and you can just type away, unfazed by the weird jump.

[jefito 5,598]

Boot17 -- thanks for the reply. That's exactly what I'm talking about. I appreciate the response (and I don't feel so crazy after all).

[jefito 5,598]

A further thought -- this may seem like a small thing, but when you have 10,000+ notes, search is very important. If every time you attempt a search, you get banged on the knuckles because of a strange/undeft UI choice, it's a productivity tripwire.

[s2sailor 2,426]

It seemed like the UI was rushed to include AI search so I was hoping it was a temporary change and it would be cleaned up later.  It has been a while now and I'm losing hope that they will return to it.  The current search UI is jarring.  We shouldn't be given a text box to click in only to be presented with another text box.  Some of their design choices are ... curious.

[PinkElephant 8,773]

9 minutes ago, s2sailor said:

It seemed like the UI was rushed to include AI search so I was hoping it was a temporary change and it would be cleaned up later.  It has been a while now and I'm losing hope that they will return to it.  The current search UI is jarring.  We shouldn't be given a text box to click in only to be presented with another text box.  Some of their design choices are ... curious.

Actually this goes way further back - it is like this since v10 launched 4 years ago.

We had some lively discussion in this forum, because the cursor position of the search field is a little below the point where you clicked into the text field named Search - and would expect to continue the input. Once you know it, I found it easy to ignore. Other users were less tolerant.

BC has only added the AI option to the search field.

[s2sailor 2,426]

Yes, I've gotten used to it but still don't like it.

[jefito 5,598]

10 hours ago, PinkElephant said:

Other users were less tolerant.

Hmmmm, anyone you know????  

[VincentC 339]

And i don't notice any of this and none of it bothers me....

 

Vinnie

[Jon/t 1,652]

17 minutes ago, VincentC said:

And i don't notice any of this and none of it bothers me....

 

Ha! I'm exactly the same as you. I don't notice any of these little things and neither does it bother me at all. I just get on with doing stuff.

[jefito 5,598]

@VincentC and @Jon/t -

Glad that it's working for you, but to me it's careless/sloppy coding and an obstacle to good flow in the program. And has been noted by others previously.

Look at Google Search in your browser, for example (if you use that). It actually does a similar thing: you click on the search area (which looks like a text control), and indeed, a dialog comes up, but what's UI-nice about it is that your blinking cursor is in a new text box, which is right where the pseudo text box you clicked in, at the right place you'd expect it to be you'd clicked in a normal text box control. No visual discontinuity at all. 

The Evernote way leaves the mouse cursor where it was (as it should) but moves the blinking text cursor down by a fair distance. This is not good UI, at all. If they bothered to align the two text boxes (the faux text box that you clicked in initially, and the one you actually type into), then that would be correct. And there's no UI or other functional reason that I can see to do things the Evernote way.

But hey, what do I know. I only wrote software for 40+ years, including, yes, complicated UI. This should not be complicated.

[msg6 46]

Same here; it's on my list of inefficiencies/backward steps in development.  I find that second-stage pop-up to be somewhat jarring every single time I use it.

It's almost better entering the keyboard shortcut (CTRL+ALT+F), so that at least then the second-stage pop is more expected.  Personally, I find this dual-stage search to be a completely unnecessary development.  I've never used any of the options it offers, and looking at it again today, I still don't see any real benefit to it.

The search combination of "tag:[tag] keyword" was always fast, accurate, and efficient for me, and is still the way I search.  For as much as I used this over the years, specifically with pre-10 desktop clients, I can recall very few instances of an unexpected result.  It just worked.

 

[jefito 5,598]

23 hours ago, msg6 said:

Same here; it's on my list of inefficiencies/backward steps in development. 

Yeah, it seems kind of nitpicky, but  my QA folks would have never let something like this out of the building, back in the day.

But you're right -- I should get Ctrl+Alt+F back into my fingers. I do use my tags pretty religiously. 

Thanks.