Search result display order is questionable, unintuitive

[DesiQ 8]

Here's a screenshot showing a good example of Evernote's problem. I search for the phrase fire and rainfall, because I know that the article I am looking for has those exact words in its note title, in that exact order.

 

But Evernote decides that, no, I don't actually want to see a note titled 'fire and rainfall' which contains many instances of 'fire' and 'rainfall' in its body text, so it demotes that to the third search result while promoting two other notes. which only mention 'fire' and 'rainfall' once in the entire note.

 

That I can wrap quotes around my query to search for the exact phrase is irrelevant. The user doesn't always remember the exact phrase they're looking for, but the user certainly expects that notes with the phrase appearing in the title and the keywords appearing multiple times within should be displayed as the best result.

[HeyMalc 29]

Agreed – this is not intuitive. Evernote does 95% of stuff so well but there are a few odd quirks like this which you notice and you just hope will be improved in the next version.

There are a few odd ways in which the search/filters work.

Another annoying thing is once you have filtered notes down to, perhaps six or seven, the inability to be able to drag and drop those into an order you want. Or even an order determined by data you put in an additional field. I use a filter like this for my to-do list and it will be great for me to be able to have the most important item at the top. I can't.

I hope you get a satisfactory answer to your search question.

Malc

[jefito 5,598]

It orders its search results according to your current note sorting criteria, and has done for a long time (I can't remember a time when it didn't). It doesn't have a sort criterion for "relevance"; it's strictly note attribute based. If you want to search for matches exclusively in the title, then there's a search term for that:

 

intitle:"fire and rainfall"

 

Note the quotes. Also note that you can search for exactly "fire and rainfall" by quoting it in the search control.

 

The note lists have never had the ability to drag notes into an arbitrary order; the reminders sublist does, though.

[DesiQ 8]

It doesn't have a sort criterion for "relevance"

 

Then the next question we need to ask is, "Why not?" That's like Google sorting results alphabetically or by date crawled.

[gazumped 12,075]

 

It doesn't have a sort criterion for "relevance"

 

Then the next question we need to ask is, "Why not?" That's like Google sorting results alphabetically or by date crawled.

 

 

I'd guess the answers include one or more of the following -

• if Evernote's search engine acted exactly like Google's (or anyone else's) some enterprising lawyer would want it shut down for breach of something or other
• it didn't occur to whoever designed the search function at the time that this particular feature was required
• So far not enough users have indicated that this is an issue to prompt Evernote to revisit the idea (and this forum isn't the only feedback they use)

Fixing this will involve possibly very substantial time and effort,  so it's not likely to be something the company will undertake lightly - and even if they started already I'd be surprised if they can release it this year.  The suggestion has been made however - up to the developers to consider if,  how and when they can improve the function.

[JMichaelTX 4,118]

Fixing this will involve possibly very substantial time and effort,  so it's not likely to be something the company will undertake lightly - and even if they started already I'd be surprised if they can release it this year.  The suggestion has been made however - up to the developers to consider if,  how and when they can improve the function.

 

 

Maybe sooner than you think.  

The just released EN Mac 5.6 includes sorting of search results by relevance.

[gazumped 12,075]

   I hate it when they do that....

[DesiQ 8]

Hurrah! Let's hope it lands on Windows soon.

[jefito 5,598]

 

It doesn't have a sort criterion for "relevance"

 

Then the next question we need to ask is, "Why not?" That's like Google sorting results alphabetically or by date crawled.

 

The "Why" part is not known to me; I'm just describing how it works in the here and now, with respect to the Windows client, which is what I use. I'll withhold judgement on any sort-by-relevance until I see it. BTW, the Mac client has had a natural language search feature  for some time which hasn't made it to Windows yet either. That may or may not be indicative of anything, though.

 

As it happens, the current sorting method works pretty well for me (updated date, reversed, mostly) for what I use Evernote for. Evernote is Google-like, in some respects, but I use it far differently than I use Google.

[DesiQ 8]

 

BTW, the Mac client has had a natural language search feature  for some time which hasn't made it to Windows yet either. That may or may not be indicative of anything, though.

 

 

I hypothesise that they're under more pressure to deliver semantic search on Macs, which has DEVONthink and its semantic search as a direct competitor to Evernote. There's no such pressure on Windows, sadly, DEVONthink being Mac-only.

[jonnyb 3]

I agree. It should sort by relevance. I like the options for a deeper more specific search but making the experience as efficient as possible should be the goal. Unless there is a good reason not to sort by relevance. Sorting options would be great as well, relevance, date added, by notebook, etc...And it shouldn't take that long, there are hundreds of people working at evernote, this should take 2 devs and 1 designer maybe 2 months max to do, maybe add 1 more month for user testing etc. 

[gazumped 12,075]

...assuming that you have the timescales right,  and the devs and the designer don't have anything else to do with their time for the next year or so...

[BalloonStoryteller 0]

Now on the new update ALL of my search results are sorted by relevance, whether I want them to be or not.  I like them sorted by date.  Even if I go back and reset the search to date, it only applies to that search.  Any future searches go back to the default of being sorted by relevance.  

 

I appreciate that Evernote listens to the community and added this (I really do!) but I'd like to be able to set the default for the way I use Evernote.  Does anyone know where that default setting is and how I can change it back?  It's slowing me down on every single search now.  

 

Thanks for bringing this subject up!  -Annie