(Archived) REQUEST: Please make it easier to become forum member

[J Spin 0]

Dear EN big Kahunas,

I joined this forum today. I know that Evernote can simplify processes and make my life easier, but this time it failed to meet my expectations. Assume you have been using Evernote for a while, but never needed to use the forums until a problem happened. So,

• you go to the Evernote home page.
  
• You look around and finally find Forums at the bottom of the page. Not so good for us who have less than 20/20 vision.
  
• You go to Forums, and if you are goal oriented you zoom into the forum for your device/OS (it is very easy to do so, and I do appreciate it).
  
• You then look around for the button marked JOIN FORUM but do not see it.
  
• You scroll down the page and find Help.
  
• Finally in Help you get to the tutorial that tells you to
  
• go back to the forum page and click Sign In.
  

I admit I did not see the "Read this section first" stickie which would have saved me a couple of steps, but I would have put a big JOIN FORUM button at the top of the general Forum page that leads the newbie to the registration screen. It would not hurt to use a large font for Help (and all other links in that area) and for Sign In.

Constructively submitted,

Newbie

[GrumpyMonkey 4,319]

welcome to the forum!

good points. i agree with many of them. by the way, is there a forum you could recommend as a model?

[Cluelass 1]

I agree that it could be a little easier to become a member. I did the same thing - went right to the forum I wanted to read. Then I noticed that it said I couldn't post. Fortunately, there was a "read this first" post and I read it. It told me to sign in, which I did. Then I was directed right back to the forum page. Unfortunately, there's another step to signing in - choosing a screen name - which didn't show up in the sign-in process. It wasn't until I clicked on sign in again that it came up. I'm hoping this was just a bug and that it doesn't happen to everyone this way. Too frustrating!!

But great work on Evernote!!

Cluelass

[blessedtoes 2]

I had the same problem. I have been in forums for fifteen years and don't remember ever having a challenge like this. Without intending to be snarky, when I read the question above about other forums that might serve as an example, I thought, "All of them?"

I wonder if it might be a code/browser issue in part. When I went to help and "How to register" after reading this post, the first line said, "To sign up, click the "" link at the top of any page." This button wasn't on any of the many, many pages I surfed while trying to find a way to register. I am on Firefox, updated - not like I'm on Netscape version 2.0....

Thanks for the great app, EN, good luck with the registration fix.

M

[Candid 167]

I'll add that I wish the forum link on the home page was in the white bar at the top of the page. I think it would fit nicely with the three items on the right that includes the web sign in.

[spg SCOTT 736]

I think there is another, more subtle issue as well.

Since the Forum sign in account is linked to an Evernote account, it is implied that when you come to the forum that you already have an account.

This would mean that a Create Account button would be slightly problematic in that the majority of users already have an account, just don't really know about it.

That said, it is not the easiest to understand if you are new to the forum, and so it could perhaps be improved. For instance, the Sign in button at the top could be made more obvious (or maybe the rest of the black bar could be used, to highlight how the forum works)

I believe that some other suggestions along those lines have already been posted, as well.

[garychenc00l 13]

http://discussion.evernote.com

Not too hard to remember but I agree, the User Forum was difficult to find when I started

[gbarry 2,658]

Thanks for the feedback everyone. I'll take a look at the suggestions above and we'll see what changes we can make. I think a more obvious sign in button makes sense (or perhaps some additional places where a registration process is obvious or linked to Guest account status), as well as making the directions a little clearer. It looks like some of our instructions may have reverted to the default forum settings, so there may be some quick edits that adjust the clarity.

Some of the awkwardness is linked to our Single Sign On process, which (as Scott kindly pointed out) verifies that you are indeed an Evernote user. This ensures that the user community is just that--made up of actual Evernote users. It also (almost) eliminates spam from the forum.

[gbarry 2,658]

Alright we have an updated message at the top of the page specifically for guests. We'll see if anyone becomes a member to tell me to turn it off

[allanonmage 0]

I just assumed that if you set up an Evernote account, it used the same account as your forum account. I see no reason to seperate the two.

Thats why I was kinda peeved when I had already logged into my Evernote account when it asked me to select a username... and then said my username was already taken. *facepalm*

[heather 604]

Our forum actually pre-dates "Evernote Accounts". The cloud version of Evernote came about in 2008, but Evernote has been around in one form or other since early 2000's, so there are users who have been registered on this forum from before the time where anyone needed to register for our service.

Its entirely possible that the person who has your *forum* username registered it before there was an "Evernote Account" to register for.

Additionally, some people may not want their Evernote username displayed to the world. We didn't want to unilaterally decide to display everyone's private username by default, so you need to choose your own public Display name before you make your first post.