Feedback

[sassythecat 0]

Evernote seems not to have a feedback route, apart from these community forums - how often anyone from Evernote looks at these, of course, is unknown.  But - here's my question: why is the Tags page on the Mac app so difficult to read?  Dark grey text on a grey background is hardly one of the recommended Web contrast combinations - the layout is also a mess - taga are spread out on the page with lots of space between, when a simple list would serve perfectly well.  Not everyone using Evernote will have teenagers' 20/20 vision, so it's time something was done to improve this page.  It is rather odd, since most of the rest of Evernote is well designed from a usability point of view.  Finally - give us a feedback page for comment - one that you actually look at from time to time!

[JMichaelTX 4,117]

 

Per CEO Phil Libin (don't know  why you would ever think of him as your "uncle") the EN designers/developers have continued to largely ignore their customers/users.  There are a few exceptions, but, IMO, this is generally their approach.

This is not at all the case.

 

1. To clarify Phil's point: Users are (often) not product designers. Even if they are, I am fairly certain that they are not aware of the intricacies of our software stack, infrastructure, use cases, metrics, feedback, design guidelines, etc etc etc. HOWEVER, users provide invaluable because we at Evernote are often too close to the product. We LOVE your feedback and try to soak up as much as possible.

 

2. Taking #1 into account: while this is primarily a user forum, we read all the posts on here. We often don't respond (for lack of time). We don't give out timelines (because they change constantly). But we truly appreciate the discussion on here and use it as a primary data point when developing our products.

 

As a general philosophy, we don't attack small problems as they come unless they are show stoppers for a massive population of our users. We group problems into larger buckets and approach the root cause. A great example of this is our note editor. We rewrote the whole thing rather than tackle an infinite number of small issues with bulleted lists (that other common applications also have trouble with http://cl.ly/image/0d1k2t280R20 ). Out of it, we got better tables (v1) and image resizing (v1) among other things.

 

Hope this helps. Thanks again for the feedback!

 

 

Hi Jack.  Thanks for your considered response to our concerns.  I have no doubt that you personally try to listen to user feedback, and fight for changes we need.  But, to be honest, I'm not sure that the EN Developer Teams see it the same way.

 

I'm sorry, but this quote for CEO Phil LIbin seems very clear to me that, at least he, doesn't value customer requests that much:

 

 

 

We are the target market, we are the users that we want to build for. We build software that we want to use and so anytime we get a recommendation or suggestion for something new, the filter we run it through is whether it’s something we want to use. That does happen sometimes and if not then we don’t build it.

 

The first phrase says it all:  "We are the target market"

 

I want to think about this some more, but I have a hard time getting past the above statement.

Frankly, it seems like Libin is more interested in creating new products/features that will draw press attention than he is in completing and maturing existing products.

 

My continued thanks to you for all that you do.

[CalS 5,280]

Jack,

Thanks for the quick response.

1. Understand, just still a bit of a guessing game as to which and when. Less interested about which make the cut, more interested they are getting fixed. Examples being all of the sync issues and rebuilds that seem to be required plus other specific items such as the recently introduced tag selection from drop down which can create a tag error. And last I checked, reminder date logic still does not perform to spec. Those seem to be problems which would be impactful to a broad swath of the Windows user community.

2. I have been reading the blog and if that is the roadmap, thanks for clarifying.

A pleasure as always.

[Jackolicious 808]

But the flip side is the "broken window theory" (e.g. see http://blog.codinghorror.com/the-broken-window-theory/). If you let the seemingly small things go for too long, then users get the idea that you don't care. 

I'm well aware of this theory We are paying attention! We care!

 

Qualifier here being those errors that effect the appropriate percentage of the population I suppose, whatever that might be.  That and a roadmap of some sort, not a 1.1.1.1 version, but some sort of overview of where they are taking the product.  

1. I mentioned earlier about some of the data sources we use. I won't repeat them in the same thread: https://discussion.evernote.com/topic/69839-feedback/?p=310117 The list is nowhere near exhaustive. 

2. We just discussed our roadmap in depth at at our conference. A quick google search or peruse of our blog should do the trick.

 

As always, I appreciate the discussion  

[CalS 5,280]

Evernote reads them or they don't, I'm assuming they do if they say so.  They could have a clerk responding to every message with a "Read it." and I wouldn't know the difference, if you want to go to the dark side.

 

So if they are reading this feedback, I would like some in return.  Some comfort that the flat out errors with all versions of the software are going to get fixed in some reasonable time frame.  Qualifier here being those errors that effect the appropriate percentage of the population I suppose, whatever that might be.  That and a roadmap of some sort, not a 1.1.1.1 version, but some sort of overview of where they are taking the product.  We commit a lot when we use any company's products, not too much to ask for glimpse behind the curtain.  And I don't need all the reprimands about corporate secrecy and all that, I'm talking about a conversational roadmap of where they are going.  I personally am having a bit of a problem with matching the walking and talking of EN at the moment.

[jefito 5,589]

2. Taking #1 into account: while this is primarily a user forum, we read all the posts on here. We often don't respond (for lack of time). We don't give out timelines (because they change constantly). But we truly appreciate the discussion on here and use it as a primary data point when developing our products.

Good to get a re-affirmation on this. I've said it here in the forums any number of times, based on prior statements by you and other Evernote employees; it's just that the nature of these forums has changed a bit, being more or less the front-line support option for free users. 

 

As a general philosophy, we don't attack small problems as they come unless they are show stoppers for a massive population of our users. We group problems into larger buckets and approach the root cause. A great example of this is our note editor. We rewrote the whole thing rather than tackle an infinite number of small issues with bulleted lists (that other common applications also have trouble with http://cl.ly/image/0d1k2t280R20 ). Out of it, we got better tables (v1) and image resizing (v1) among other things.

Hmmm, gotta swallow hard on this one. As a guiding principle, sure, but the crux is "massive population". Is that a percentage of the user base? A number? A feeling? A problem that affects a small percentage of your user base is a pretty large number these days. I certainly understand this in the context of the note editor thing: it's been a long-standing thorn to a lot of users; of course, a complete overhaul can just replace the old bugs with a completely new set. I'm sure that's a risk you've calculated. In general, getting a bigger bang for the buck by fixing root causes is obviously appealing.

But the flip side is the "broken window theory" (e.g. see http://blog.codinghorror.com/the-broken-window-theory/). If you let the seemingly small things go for too long, then users get the idea that you don't care. I feel as though this is happening now with Evernote. It's a little distressing in that you appear to have a good methodology in place for dealing with the sort of small problems that crop up -- Agile (or some flavor thereof), right? Sort cycles for constrained fixes? Or have I read your methodology wrong?

 

Just some food for thought...

[jefito 5,589]

Do we really want to add extra traffic to the forums of the sort of obligatory "I read this"? It signifies nothing at all. It could just be a rubber stamp. It adds nothing meaningful to the discussion. Comments from Evernote folks that engage a user's questions/issues are always welcome (take Jack's comments here, for example) But "I read this"? No thanks.

 

My usual take is this: if you don't take Evernote at their word ("we read every post"), then why would you ever trust their software/services with precious data from your life and work?

[gazumped 11,665]

Thanks @Jackolicious for taking the time to respond on this thread and for the reassurance. 

 

I don't see developers coming here to explain their design and process choices as any more likely than Ford are likely to explain why they chose a particular boot shape for their latest model,  and for pretty much the same reason:  we don't have a seat on the tech team or in their board room (although of course I can't speak for everyone here...) and our only real power is - if we don't like it,  we don't buy. 

 

(Another reason might be that even if employees do respond,  they might wind up in heated debate for the next few weeks...)

 

The OP's point was "there's no way to give feedback" which has been raised and answered,  along with "and even if we did, you don't listen",  which has been raised and answered before as well as here.

[GrumpyMonkey 4,319]

 

 

Per CEO Phil Libin (don't know  why you would ever think of him as your "uncle") the EN designers/developers have continued to largely ignore their customers/users.  There are a few exceptions, but, IMO, this is generally their approach.

This is not at all the case.

 

1. To clarify Phil's point: Users are (often) not product designers. Even if they are, I am fairly certain that they are not aware of the intricacies of our software stack, infrastructure, use cases, metrics, feedback, design guidelines, etc etc etc. HOWEVER, users provide invaluable because we at Evernote are often too close to the product. We LOVE your feedback and try to soak up as much as possible.

 

2. Taking #1 into account: while this is primarily a user forum, we read all the posts on here. We often don't respond (for lack of time). We don't give out timelines (because they change constantly). But we truly appreciate the discussion on here and use it as a primary data point when developing our products.

 

As a general philosophy, we don't attack small problems as they come unless they are show stoppers for a massive population of our users. We group problems into larger buckets and approach the root cause. A great example of this is our note editor. We rewrote the whole thing rather than tackle an infinite number of small issues with bulleted lists (that other common applications also have trouble with http://cl.ly/image/0d1k2t280R20 ). Out of it, we got better tables (v1) and image resizing (v1) among other things.

 

Hope this helps. Thanks again for the feedback!

 

 

Hi Jack.  Thanks for your considered response to our concerns.  I have no doubt that you personally try to listen to user feedback, and fight for changes we need.  But, to be honest, I'm not sure that the EN Developer Teams see it the same way.

 

I'm sorry, but this quote for CEO Phil LIbin seems very clear to me that, at least he, doesn't value customer requests that much:

 

 

 

We are the target market, we are the users that we want to build for. We build software that we want to use and so anytime we get a recommendation or suggestion for something new, the filter we run it through is whether it’s something we want to use. That does happen sometimes and if not then we don’t build it.

 

The first phrase says it all:  "We are the target market"

 

I want to think about this some more, but I have a hard time getting past the above statement.

Frankly, it seems like Libin is more interested in creating new products/features that will draw press attention than he is in completing and maturing existing products.

 

My continued thanks to you for all that you do.

 

 

I don't agree with a lot of design decisions, to be sure, but I wouldn't spend too much effort parsing Phil's comments, especially if you end up concluding that he doesn't care about customers or customer feedback. That seems pretty unlikely. Instead, a more generous reading of his comment (and one I think is closer to the mark) is that Evernote wanted to stop building stuff for other people that they would never use themselves. Instead, working from the assumption that they are regular folks like you and me, they set out to build something that they wanted to use. That seems like a good start to me, and in many respects, Evernote has managed amazingly well in a very competitive space by following that philosophy.

 

I don't hold Steve Jobs up on a pedestal or anything, but he is often seen as a visionary, and I'd say his design philosophy was rather similar. As I understand it, he didn't like fans. It wasn't that he cared whether you or I don't. He didn't, so he kept trying to get rid of them or make them quieter. I happen to agree with him on this, but I am sure there are plenty of people out there who wish he would have applied his efforts elsewhere, and I know lots of people used to complain about their overheating products. 

 

The point is that people in charge aren't necessarily jerks who don't care what we think. Unfortunately, they simply disagree with us sometimes. That seems fair to me, even if I don't always benefit from the design decisions. Phil is running a company and this is what he'll be remembered for in this life (assuming his Evernote account doesn't become self-aware and go on a genocidal rampage like Skynet), so I think we can give him the benefit of the doubt with statements like that.

[JMichaelTX 4,117]

From time to time, posters claim that EN does not read this Forum.  Thanks for setting the record straight.

 

 

Who can say that they actually read EVERY post in these forums?

 

Maybe the Evernote Employees do, but if they really want to acknowledge they have read a thread, they could easily post a reply that says nothing more than "Read this thread".

 

More importantly, I think it would really help if the designers would provide their rationale for certain design decisions.  For example, if a feature is removed, provide the rationale for doing so.

[pgdahl 133]

1. To clarify Phil's point: Users are (often) not product designers. Even if they are, I am fairly certain that they are not aware of the intricacies of our software stack, infrastructure, use cases, metrics, feedback, design guidelines, etc etc etc. HOWEVER, users provide invaluable because we at Evernote are often too close to the product. We LOVE your feedback and try to soak up as much as possible.

You do not need to be a product designer or know anything about the workings of software development to know that the tag screen is largely unusable because you cannot read it or that the inability to remove distracting GUI elements is a daily annoyance. This kind of response makes me feel like there really aren't much point in giving Evernote feedback because Evernote knows better anyway. 

For regular users who struggle with usability and stability issues every day it is difficult to understand why there is all this focus on adding new gimmicks and - seemingly - ignore issues that have been perpetuated by users on these very forums ad nauseam. No matter how little they know about making software.

 

Tonight, I had a former co-worker visit me and he proudly announced to me that he had finally started using Evernote as I used to urge him to. 2 years ago, it would have been a proud moment, but today I felt a little ashamed. I no longer recommend Evernote to anyone unless followed by a big, fat warning about the direction Evernote is going.

[pleasemakeitwork 10]

 

Per CEO Phil Libin (don't know  why you would ever think of him as your "uncle") the EN designers/developers have continued to largely ignore their customers/users.  There are a few exceptions, but, IMO, this is generally their approach.

This is not at all the case.

 

1. To clarify Phil's point: Users are (often) not product designers. Even if they are, I am fairly certain that they are not aware of the intricacies of our software stack, infrastructure, use cases, metrics, feedback, design guidelines, etc etc etc. HOWEVER, users provide invaluable because we at Evernote are often too close to the product. We LOVE your feedback and try to soak up as much as possible.

 

2. Taking #1 into account: while this is primarily a user forum, we read all the posts on here. We often don't respond (for lack of time). We don't give out timelines (because they change constantly). But we truly appreciate the discussion on here and use it as a primary data point when developing our products.

 

As a general philosophy, we don't attack small problems as they come unless they are show stoppers for a massive population of our users. We group problems into larger buckets and approach the root cause. A great example of this is our note editor. We rewrote the whole thing rather than tackle an infinite number of small issues with bulleted lists (that other common applications also have trouble with http://cl.ly/image/0d1k2t280R20 ). Out of it, we got better tables (v1) and image resizing (v1) among other things.

 

Hope this helps. Thanks again for the feedback!

 

 

 

 

Per CEO Phil Libin (don't know  why you would ever think of him as your "uncle") the EN designers/developers have continued to largely ignore their customers/users.  There are a few exceptions, but, IMO, this is generally their approach.

 

 

 

2. Taking #1 into account: while this is primarily a user forum, we read all the posts on here. We often don't respond (for lack of time). We don't give out timelines (because they change constantly). But we truly appreciate the discussion on here and use it as a primary data point when developing our products.

 

 

 

From time to time, posters claim that EN does not read this Forum.  Thanks for setting the record straight.

[Jackolicious 808]

I have no doubt that you personally try to listen to user feedback, and fight for changes we need.  But, to be honest, I'm not sure that the EN Developer Teams see it the same way.

I can assure you that you (and I) have the ear of EN Devs

[Jackolicious 808]

Per CEO Phil Libin (don't know  why you would ever think of him as your "uncle") the EN designers/developers have continued to largely ignore their customers/users.  There are a few exceptions, but, IMO, this is generally their approach.

This is not at all the case.

 

1. To clarify Phil's point: Users are (often) not product designers. Even if they are, I am fairly certain that they are not aware of the intricacies of our software stack, infrastructure, use cases, metrics, feedback, design guidelines, etc etc etc. HOWEVER, users provide invaluable because we at Evernote are often too close to the product. We LOVE your feedback and try to soak up as much as possible.

 

2. Taking #1 into account: while this is primarily a user forum, we read all the posts on here. We often don't respond (for lack of time). We don't give out timelines (because they change constantly). But we truly appreciate the discussion on here and use it as a primary data point when developing our products.

 

As a general philosophy, we don't attack small problems as they come unless they are show stoppers for a massive population of our users. We group problems into larger buckets and approach the root cause. A great example of this is our note editor. We rewrote the whole thing rather than tackle an infinite number of small issues with bulleted lists (that other common applications also have trouble with http://cl.ly/image/0d1k2t280R20 ). Out of it, we got better tables (v1) and image resizing (v1) among other things.

 

Hope this helps. Thanks again for the feedback!

[JMichaelTX 4,117]

@Gaz:  You do realize that you just contradicted yourself, right?

 

IAC, I think your view of user input is completed distorted.  Users rarely want to tell the developer HOW to design the architecture of the app.  

 

Mostly we just want our needs to be considered, in terms of features, and good, effective, usable, readable, intuitive User Interface.  Although there are some additional features I'd like Evernote to have (like highly encrypted Notes on a NB basis), my biggest complaint about Evernote is it's UI.  They have continued to put form AHEAD of function, and provide such low contrast UI that it is very hard to read.  The ONLY point in this low contrast UI that I can imagine is it either is cool, pretty, or conforms to corp color schemes.

 

Per CEO Phil Libin (don't know  why you would ever think of him as your "uncle") the EN designers/developers have continued to largely ignore their customers/users.  There are a few exceptions, but, IMO, this is generally their approach.

[gazumped 11,665]

No disrespect to fellow users,  but I totally agree with Uncle Phil.  Your average user rightly has little concept of organisation, discipline or patience with systems and absolutely no idea / no interest in what's practical to develop and what's not.  They're doing their job and just want something to magically make that easier.  The trouble is being an award-winning chef / author / airline pilot doesn't make you a software designer,  even in your own specialty.  

 

Camels being horses designed by committee exactly defines the sort of system I've seen in various corporates when users have had serious input into designing the product.  That's why you need a separate team to analyse what's going on and find better ways to handle it.  If these guys also happen to be actively using their own software I'd say that's a good thing - they're (theoretically) going to make it work well in their own interests!

 

What we've rudely not done though is to give the man chance to expand on his comments,  because I'd bet that once having got the concept and the initial product straight,  you then begin to need input from others who've not been totally involved with development,  so you can fill in the bits you missed through being too close.

 

But as usual we're arguing over assumptions of how Corporate Evernote thinks,  when in reality like any responsible company they're going to continue marching to their own tune regardless of what we - or anyone else- say.  If they get it wrong,  Phil will be on the job market and you'll be able to employ him and tell him what to do with some authority. 

 

If they get it right,  I guess we'll still be arguing in 90+ years...  or by then maybe my Evernote Avatar will be responding on my behalf. 

[JMichaelTX 4,117]

 There's never a 'policy' to ignore feedback - any company would be supremely dumb to do so,  because that's how you make your product appeal to more people,  and therefore get more widely used - and even,  in some cases,  paid for.  

 

Actually for years Evernote CEO Phil Libin was quoted in many interviews as saying that Evernote designs their app to suit themselves personally.  IOW, they don't really care what their users want, they are going to build Evernote like they want as users of their own product.

 

Here's a direct quote from an interview in Feb 2012

http://doeswhat.com/2012/02/25/interview-with-phil-libin-evernote/

 

 

 

 

With around 20 million users you must receive a lot of feature requests and suggestions. How do you manage all of them?

I think we may have just passed 23 million. We get quite a bit and we really want to hear from users and see what they think. We’ve found that different types of user feedback is relevant in different ways. The least relevant is when you ask users what should we build, having users do product design or feature roadmap for you doesn’t really work. Users aren’t designers they don’t particularly know what they want so in terms of how we decide what to build. We are the target market, we are the users that we want to build for. We build software that we want to use and so anytime we get a recommendation or suggestion for something new, the filter we run it through is whether it’s something we want to use. That does happen sometimes and if not then we don’t build it.

 

[jefito 5,589]

Why should I have to go looking for sites to provide this feedback when EN has a "support" page? I'm busy, I don't have the time.  As "Memorable" suggests - the probability of getting any response from EN appears to be remote, so it would all be a waste of time.  For all its hype about EN's great features (and I agree, it is a fine app), it's just like any other software firm, ignoring what it wants to ignore and leaving users to their own devices.

You don't need to "go looking for sites" to provide feedback; this is just one of several sites where feedback may be left. They will pick it up, even if they don't respond. Or if you want, you can go to the official support site and report it there. Feedback on design issues is useful to them, but there's no guarantees that they will implement your design. Yes, software development companies often have their own ideas. Imagine that.

[gazumped 11,665]

So far as I'm aware,  Evernote is no worse than any other large corporation in that it does some research,  builds a product and then waits for people to use it.  There's never a 'policy' to ignore feedback - any company would be supremely dumb to do so,  because that's how you make your product appeal to more people,  and therefore get more widely used - and even,  in some cases,  paid for.  But it's hardly possible to get back to each individual with a considered comment - you have to rely on those who want to raise an issue to find a way to do so,  and join the crowd of other commenters requesting their favourite tweak.  Evernote reputedly has 100 Million + users,  and by my math even if only a fraction of those users give feedback,  someone,  somewhere would have to be cranking out responses several times per minute to keep up.

 

Plus.  Any big corporation has already set its plans in place for the next 12-24 months,  and if your request didn't already feature in there somewhere,  it's not going to happen soon.  And in the nature of business,  if any comments went out "we're going to look at that at the end of next year" 1) something would come up that would delay it and provoke a storm of complaint;  and 2) there would be an immediate storm of complaint that it wasn't already going to be done sooner;  and 3) everyone espousing a different feature that wasn't mentioned would kick up a storm of complaint that their issue didn't get priority.  That triples the inbound comments and the response machine would need to go into overdrive.

 

So I don't see it as a major failing that Ford don't take my calls about the new 5-wheel model I think they should bring in,  and Evernote haven't changed the colour scheme to match my wallpaper.  If I feel strongly enough about something though,  it's in my best interests to make an effort and comment somewhere,  otherwise no-one will know or care what I think.

[sassythecat 0]

Why should I have to go looking for sites to provide this feedback when EN has a "support" page? I'm busy, I don't have the time.  As "Memorable" suggests - the probability of getting any response from EN appears to be remote, so it would all be a waste of time.  For all its hype about EN's great features (and I agree, it is a fine app), it's just like any other software firm, ignoring what it wants to ignore and leaving users to their own devices.

[pleasemakeitwork 10]

I posted this question a couple years ago on this Forum, and a few times since then. Dead silence from EN. A few weeks ago I tried again on a thread on which a regularly active EN employee was being active yet again.  Dead silence from him.

 

The bottom line is that EN ignores this issue.  For whatever reason (or perhaps absent a good reason) they seem to have assigned this defect an importance level of zero; and, the record so far is that they will ignore all questions about it.

 

There is no factual basis, of which I am aware, upon which to predict that EN ever will do anything about this defect.

 

If there is any consolation to be had, it is in the iOS version wherein the tag view is utterly useless.  That utter uselessness is a nano-increment worse than the desktop version which, regrettably, is as you describe it.

 

If you get even a mere glimmer of a response from EN, please post it here. Thanks. Nobody is betting that you will hear from EN. If anyone is, I will take the opposite side of that wager and get rich on it.

[gazumped 11,665]

- plus -

 

Google+     - multiple groups

LinkedIn     - company pages and user group

Facebook  - company page

Twitter       - support and company

[jefito 5,589]

You can give feedback via support requests (free users may not get an answer back).

The Evernote team claims to read very post here in the forums, so there's that.

They probably follow the feedback from the various app stores (Android, iOS, etc.)

And there's at least one beta Hangout on Google.

I'm sure that there's more.

 

Posting bugs and feature requests here in the forum is fine. Again, you might not get a direct response.