I am confused with the work chat / sharing

[Frank Blome 12]

Hi all,

 

Since the work chat has been introduced I am a little totally confused with the sharing feature. Many of my notebooks are shared with individuals. Formerly I could manage them all in the Permissions sheet. Now I open the permission sheet and after a click on "Share Notebook…" it disappears and the work chat windows opens. This is where I get lost! Do I start now chatting with a new person? Where came all the contacts in the list from? Do I have to start at the top of the window or just enter a new name at the bottom of the window?

 

Even I have shared now 5-10 new people since the feature was introduced, I can't memorize that! 

 

To Evernote: I now, you're working very hard to improve your tool. But combining these two features is not that natural that you may thought first. Please fix that!

 

Thanks

Frank

[mcheng 106]

Hello,

 

To access the manage sharing sheet, you need to go to the Notebooks section.  Right click on the notebook you wish to manage and you should see a menu item called "Manage Notebook Permissions ..." this will provide the old sheet you were used to seeing previously.  

 

When you click on the share icon in the notebook list (see this screenshot https://www.evernote...LlV4FLpTW0IYQow) this launches a window that will allow you to share your notebook with people you've chatted with before (upper portion of the list) OR with any of your contacts (lower portion of the list).  The window is optimized to allow you to send a message along with the share permissions.  Its recommended that you do type in a message otherwise your recipients won't know what to do with your notebook.

 

Once you have selected recipients and hit send, this will generate an email to your recipients inviting them to login or create an Evernote account as before to view your notebook and content.  We understand that this new scheme is a bit confusing and we will be looking at ways to improve the usability in upcoming releases.  

 

Hope this helps.

[Frank Blome 12]

Hi mcheng,

 

many thanks for your assistance. The click path in general I do know. But when the "new window" (the Work Chat) is opened, I always stuck:

 

1. The name "work chat" is just wrong and bad. It doesn't has anything to do with that what I want to do

2. Switching the context (from one sheet into a window) is a very bad user experience

3. The list of recent chats is very confusing in the context what I want to do. Do I need that here and now?

4. The list of contacts is very confusing as well. I have 1000+ addresses in there. Do I have to search in the top field or is it only the address bar?

5. What is the last line? Is it now again a chat program? I thought I don't have to take the name literally?

6. Why do all contents disappear when I click on the name of the notebook?

7. And after that - when I click in the "name or email" field, the middle section re-appears!

 

Sorry guys, but this is no good interface! Please, please, please give me the former interface back. That was clear, understandable and straight forward. I could edit my stuff where it was needed.

 

Thanks!

[mcheng 106]

Hello Frank,

 

Thank you for the usability feedback.  I will take this back to our designers to see if we can improve and make sharing notebooks more easy to understand.

 

To answer your questions I think this screen shot should help.

https://www.evernote.com/l/AAyXf0xCA3ZGxZfr4adSLlV4FLpTW0IYQow

 

If not please let me know and I'll be happy to explain in more detail.

 

Thanks.

[wkhatch 1]

Absolutely agree, Frank. This "feature" seems stunningly useless, unless introducing problems into what was once a very straight forward process could be perceived as useful. I don't see a single benefit of having to use work chat, let alone an advantage, over any other communication/group ware that's already out there, and, most likely, already being used by any given team. 

[kingds 1]

I'd like to bump this thread - I also find Work Chat pretty confusing. Once I got the hang of it I really like the concept. The idea of using a chat interface to handle all sharing of notes actually works great. However, I don't think that it's explained very well, so it seems very unintuitive at first. Also, and this is my main problem, I hate the name "Work Chat." It does a terrible job of explaining what it is, and I for one use Evernote for sharing personal notes more than I use it for work-related stuff. This might be great for people who use Evernote exclusively for business, but it doesn't make sense for me and the people that I share notes with. Why not just call it "Sharing"?