LucaBen

Oh yes, link between notes, a dashboard, OCR, these are such advanced features, that they require years of hard work and commitment! Your statement is a laughable one, not mine. You know I don't really care whether my predictions are going to become true or not, I am now ready to migrate to another product. The future of Evernote doesn't really matter to me. I just gave a word of warning to those who are willing to listen to my opinion. Please go ahead, if you are happy to pay an overpriced fee that compensates for poor management. As many have explained to you and those who don't want to hear it, the new management has already failed in many ways, the reactions on this community and the bad reviews that they have been getting consistently in the last few weeks are a proof of that. Not to count that resorting to dark patterns in 2024 is just pathetic. But you and another couple of users who apparently like to spend hours on this community forum are going to defend them, no matter what. Please go ahead. I wonder what's your relationship to Evernote? Do you work for them, are somehow part of the team? With 5000+ posts in ten years, I find it hard to believe that anyone would want to spend that amount of time voluntarily on a community forum like this one... Anyway I am now going to stop following this thread so probably won't read the rest of future comments. This community is dead. Just a couple of hardcore subscribers who thumb up one another and unsatisfied users announcing that they are going to leave, because they are not happy with the product, being bashed for daring to say so. It's not an interesting place to be, I rather go out for a walk and get some fresh air.

Naaah, just wait, the next promotion is coming! 😆

Well it's not my goal to hurt anybody, I am just expressing my views on this. Let the Evernote ship sink, as that's what I think will happen, and I've done my best to avoid that scenario and contribute with feedback, but hey if that's whwre they are heading towards... I hope you and other paying users will enjoy the product, as long as you are motivated to pay for what you get. I wouldn't be too optimistic that this company will last long, though; it's quite obvious to me that the management is doing mistakes that could have been easily avoided, and lacks some basic knowledge of customer relationship, and design thinking. One note about what you've written: theoretically yes, you can still use the product for free, given some limitations. Practically, they are quite openly forcing free users to leave: that's the message you are giving to people if you throw at them 2 to 4 overlays to insist that they should subscribe, every time they open the app. I find it sad that in 2024 business people still think that such a strategy can lead them anywhere. I notice that you and other paying customers often refer to non-paying users are "free riders", or those who get a "free lunch" on other people's shoulders, but I'd like to remind you that people are not left with much choice, when the business model is that you either pay a disproportionate price for what they get (a note-taking app, not some video editing software), and essentially pay the company for the many mistakes that have been made in the last few years, or get out. Evernote competitors won't necessarily have to face the same "stark" choices, just do better than Evernote did. They'll probably get a lot of new customers in the next couple of weeks - a golden rain for them, with no effort.

Yes there's no question it is like that. I don't think that proverb applies to businesses who aim at being successful in 2024, but that's a different story.

There is no doubt in my mind that the new owners have no ethics whatsoever, and no idea how to run a company successfully. Free users are now vexed with extremely invasive dark patterns on both mobile and desktop, essentially every single time that you use the app, an overlay or two is thrown at you, asking to register, and asking "are you sure?" if you don't. So ridiculous! Best way to look desperate in the eyes of your customers, and get massive amounts of negative reviews. As you said, this sudden move is another sign that the management has no cue how to deal with customers. It's fine to add new features and ask people to pay, but asking people to pay for something that used to be free, and do it this way... I've been a paying member and stopped doing so when it became obvious to me that in this company, they don't listen to customer feedback, and the new features were mostly useless to me. It's time to leave for good, there's alternatives out there. I am happy that I didn't pay a cent to use Evernote in the last couple of years, as they don't deserve my money, and I am certainly not going to pay them a cent in the near future.

I won't even enter into the details of design, because the app has many bugs that make it hardly functional, same for the web version of EN, where it's utterly impossible to add any content at all. You can't call user friendly an app that has so many technical issues, it's a pain to use one time out of two. I've just checked the latest reviews that they've got on the Android Play store in the last few days, and they are almost all 1-star and 2-star reviews. Some report the use of dark patterns, others have problems logging in so they can't even use the app and they don't know why because feedback is not provided in context, some others report data loss. You call it a "joy, compared with everything that existed before", I call it a disaster app that has been dysfunctional for such a long time: they had syncing issues, issues with duplicated content, and the app kept crashing. Now they've added dark patterns on the app, that's such a clever move isn't it?! There's been lots of discussions here and elsewhere on the topic, many have left EN, other like me have decided to stop paying for a subscription until they see some signs that the management is finally starting to engage with their user base instead of ignoring them; lots has been written on what happened at a management level, and the mistakes that those who run this company have done over the years. And yes we are off-topic, and that is perfectly fine. The only problem I see, is there's people like you and the other few people above you, who keep adding pointless comments when someone (not just me) tries to highlight usability issues in the hope of making things better. I've taken the time to make a comment where I thought it was appropriate, and it's fine even if it's slightly off-topic, because unlike you, I am not constantly on the evernote forum as I've got better things to spend my time with, and what I've done is more than enough. If their product owners are good at doing their job, they will read, and pass on some honest professional feedback to the designers and other stakeholders, and make the product better. If not, I will stop using EN and create my own note-taking app. Comments like yours are just some extra off-topic noise that add little value. I won't reply to further comments on this threat unless I read some valid contributions that are worth replying to.

Yes you probably never heard about usability engineering did you? Most UX designers nowadays are former graphic designers who just added the word "UX" to their CVs, and most of them, in my experience, are mediocre at best at doing their job. Usability is indeed an objective science and patterns are based on extensive studies and testing that have been carried out over time. We know how people think, and besides that, there's established conventions that is best practice not to break. On Evernote for Android, editing text is such a pain in the neck because everything you'd expect from a WYSIWYG editor just doesn't work, and then there's guys like you who think that it's outrageous to say that the software is objectively unusable. The mindset that you are showing is such a cliché.

Well of course it's my opinion, that should obvious to everyone reading my contribution, but yes the Android app is riddled with bugs, as the many negative reviews on the Android play store testify. Good for you if you find it usable, even though as a UX expert I can objectively say it's not a user friendly app, because it breaks some basic paradigms on how things are expected to work, and is extremely unstable, at least on my device. Hopefully it's got better in the last few weeks, I just use it for the bare minimum now because using it it's been so frustrating, up to 3 weeks ago. Cmd+opt+F is not a commonly used shortcut on the Mac, and I think it would make sense for them to use the standard one, Cmd + F, to activate search within the app. As you say it's also used for in-note search, but that only happens if you click on the note first. I don't know what was the rationale behind their choice, I can certainly say that adding the option key makes it pretty useless to me because it's such a difficult fingering, it's easier to use the mouse. And yes some of the topics I've mentioned have nothing to do with IA search and do not have to be. I am taking the time to provide professional feedback for free and doing a favour to everybody, so I hope you don't mind being slightly off topic. Cheers.

Thanks @agsteele The only improvement I see is that they've added back autosuggest. All the other issues that I've described are still there.

@Federico Simionato Hi Federico, as others have pointed out, new features like this one should not impair functionality that was working fine previously. The way I use EN and the way my notes are organised, I see no benefit whatsoever in this new feature, but it's not just that, the search UI is now significantly worst than before, and there is no way to disable IA-powered search, and go back to the old search UI. Some have complained about the lack of the autosuggest, which I would agree with. I also want to add that from an interaction design point of view, the new search UI has a higher interaction cost than it needs to be. I use search all the time, and the new interaction design is really an issue, because it's so inefficient, it really slows me down. Here is a list of issues, observed on the Desktop version for Mac (1.62.3): Clicking on the delete icon to delete the previous query does not automatically set the focus on the search field, meaning I have to click twice. See attached screencast as reference. If I now double click on the existing search query, the focus is set onto the search field, but the existing query does not get automatically selected, so I either have to select it using the mouse (very time consuming), or use the cmd + A shortcut (very impractical anyway). With the previous search, as far as I can remember, this was not an issue. See attached screencast as reference. Let's say that I want to use keyboard shortcuts instead, it's a non-standard one, difficult to type (why add the option key, and not just have cmfd + F, instead, which seems to have no functionality associated to it right now?), and still the existing query does not get selected, so I have to use the mouse or a keyboard shortcut. I remember being able to search for content based on a URL that is part of the notes content. I am not sure if this is related to the recent update, but today I was not able to do it. It's an old note so I don't think it's likely to be an issue with indexing (see attached screenshots). Lack of autosuggest, as already suggested by others. If you decide not to have autosuggest, then at least replace it with an incremental search, don't wait for the user to type enter to show the results. This is against the best practices. I hope that these issues get addressed soon, I am surprised that the interaction is so sloppy in an app used by millions of people, there should be no need for us to provide feedback on such things. When you guys introduce a new feature, there should be an interaction designer making sure that the interaction cost is optimised for efficiency. Please note that regarding point 2, I've already highlighted this issue in my post about why Previous search query should not be there unless I choose to, I don't see a valid reason to not select the previous query automatically, when starting a new one. I honestly don't understand why your team keeps imposing new features without giving the option to disable them, instead of listening to suggestions from your users about things that don't work as they should, in the first place. I've also submitted feedback at least twice about this, but apparently it went unnoticed. It's really demotivating to see no response from the EN team (same with many other feature requests done over the years by a number of paying customers), and see that there's no point in sending feedback. I won't even mention how bad search is on the web version, the app is actually impossible to use on the web browser (Chrome), because it keeps crashing. I won't mention the Android app, because that's also so unstable and riddled with bugs, that it's almost unusable. I hope you guys understand why I stopped paying for Premium a long time ago. I am not going to support a business model that is dysfunctional and that won't change unless I see more engagement with users who take the time to provide feedback. There's many other products out there where the product team actively engages with users sending feedback in the public space, I haven't seen anything like that from the EN in years. Evernote search need to click twice to enter new query.mov Evernote search old query in place and double click not working as expected.mov

You may be right, in that case I'll keep using EN as a non paying customers. What bothers me is to receive comments from other users who criticize suggestions to improve on things, rather than supporting them.

@PinkElephant I don't see why they can't change their strategy, if customers start asking for it. You are making a series of weak arguments and assumptions that may not necessarily be right. I suggest that if you don't agree with the idea, you just ignore it instead of bashing against it.

I think it's the exact opposite of obsolete. You are proposing a model that keeps UX out of the equation, where EN decides what to implement and what to communicate, and customers should just take a note: that is obsolete. This request form is obsolete, too, and highly inefficient. A wishlist website is a much better way to get feedback and get people engaged. Of course I don't think that this situation is due to a lack of tools, or that EN cannot find a way to communicate. That would be silly. It's rather a lack of users letting them know that they are not going to support EN any longer unless they change their communication strategy. Building a Wishlist website would require a minimal effort and if it doesn't work, let it be. I really see no reason why they shouldn't invest on it, everyone would benefit from it. Lots of users have migrated to other tools already and more will do.

@PinkElephant How do you know that it would not be used?

@PinkElephant The feature request forum sucks, compared to what I am proposing, mostly because it lacks any interaction with the Evernote team. The argument that it would be an advantage for competitors is often brought up and it makes little sense. Products are extremely different from one another, the features that Evernote would implement are different than the features that competitors would implement. And as you are saying, a request forum exists already, so competitors could just read that, if they wanted to get insight into what users want. It's really an argument that does not stand up to scrutiny, and the success story of Webflow is also a proof that it's a good idea that can bring a competitive advantage. Anyway you guys are free to have your own opinions, and pay for Premium if you wish. I won't be a paying customer in the coming future.

@Dave-in-Decatur I've mentioned it above: tabs, in-note anchors, more export options with possibility to export all notes at once are the features that many have been asking for, including myself.

@Boot17@Dave-in-Decatur Thanks for your replies. I honestly don't see what is so puzzling about my proposal. I've been using Webflow for years, and it's great to have the possibility to interact with the core team that is working on new features: you should check out how their wishlist website works. Why can't Evernote do the same, and instead, keep working the old-fashioned way as you seem to suggest they should do? Google and Microsoft don't, and in fact most of their products are passable at best, what makes them so successful (and still great to use) is the huge amount of data they can share, because they are a monopoly. Of course I pay Evernote for what they offer, that is so obvious there is no need to even state it, but it's not true that you can go elsewhere: there is just no replacement for Evernote, in my opinion. I would rather keep using it, and contribute to it. I don't see why there can't be both, paying to use it, and have them listen to my suggestions for improvements. That's what all business owners should do, if they want their product to be successful: listen to their users, pain points and frustrations in particular, and create a feeback loop so as the product evolves, you also get useful insight from the people who are using it.

I've submitted a request to publish a wishlist website, please consider upvoting the idea (so to say, because there is no upvote feature but you can at least like it or comment), if you think that the team at Evernote should start listening to their customers and being more transparent about their future plans. For the time being, I am fine with Evernote basic, it does pretty much all I need, despite the many bugs and missing features. I did unsubscribe from this thread and only came back to add something, I am now going to unsubscribe from updates again.

I've just cancelled my Premium subscription and the condition for me to upgrade again is to see a wishlist website, similar to one that have been successfully implemented elsewhere (Webflow being the best example that I can think of: https://wishlist.webflow.com/). This should be a place where customers can submit ideas, vote for them, and follow progress, with official updates from the Evernote team on what's going to be taken on and released, and what not. I am not completely negative about the new Evernote, there are things that I like and things that I don't, but I am tired of funding a project that keep steering away from the core business I used to pay for (taking notes, keeping them organised), and instead of improving on that, they keep adding new features such as task management, to make Evernote an app that does everything and does it poorly. There's plenty of paying customers on this forum who are complaining about their requests not being taken into consideration. Some of them appear perfectly reasonable to me, and have been requested by a significant amount of users, e.g. tabs, anchors within notes, export options. I've also added my own requests over time, e.g. search has always had lots of issues, and still does. We don't even know if anyone at Evernote reads this, all the response we get is from some forum users who apparently spend hours every week replying to comments, quite often by cynically dismissing other people's suggestions). To those who say that by doing this, I deprive the company of the resources they need to keep improving, my answer is that I am happy to fund them again, as long as I know what I am paying for. It's also worth mentioning the fact that the Android app is full of bugs and keeps crushing, and we are now more than a year away from the announcement of the new release. Instead of releasing new features, I'd rather appreciate if they could focus on fixing bugs to their existing software first. If you search for the keyword "evernote" on Hacker News, the most popular one is an article published 9 years ago, called: "Evernote: the bug-ridden elephant". Apparently not much has changed in ten years. Well, let them lose some paying customers so they figure out how to move forward. Note: I am posting here because I'd like this request to be public, and because apparently as a non-paying customer, I don't have access to a feature request form anymore. Please support this request if you believe that this is how the team at Evernote should work together with their customers to make the product better.

They got enough funding from me so far, and managed to release an Android app that has been bug-rigged for motnhs. I am happy to fund improvements that are made with consideration for what users are asking for, rather than useless new features that are far away from their core business (at least for the many among us who want to use evernote to take notes and keep them organised).

As a new year proposition, I've cancelled my Evernote Premium subscription and won't upgrade again until they implement a wishlist website where users can submit ideas, vote for them, and follow progress updates from the evernote team (officially). I am tired of being a paying customer and endless waiting for features to be improved/implemented, with an Android app that is full of bugs and keeps crushing.

I've cancelled my Premium subscription to Evernote and won't be upgrading again until I see a proper wishlist website where users can vote for ideas, and progress is tracked. It's ridiculous that as a paying customer, I have to use request forms for new features and hope they will be read at some point, or maybe 15 years are going to past and no changes will ever be implemented.

Thanks for the useful information, @PinkElephant, much appreciated; will check that out. Submitting feedback is not an option any more, I did use it, and have no idea whether those suggestions are going to have a follow up, or not. As regards the publication of a backlog, I am not entirely persuaded by your argument, even though I see where you are coming from. It still takes months to develop new features, they probably have a solid team, so they would have a competitive advantage even if they did publish it. Large corporations are all quite slow at implementing new features, so I don't see a big risk there. Plus competitors also do research and they can keep an eye on this community, if they wish, so I doubt they would need Evernote to publish their backlog in order to decide what should come next. As a proof of what I am saying, take Webflow as an example: they are very successful and they've been retaining their position as market leads for years, and they have a wishlist website that has been running for a few years now: before adding cutting edge features such as support for CSS grid and flexbox, membership area, reusable templates, and certain e-commerce features, these ideas were upvoted and discussed by their community. I prefer that approach, particularly if your users are paying, they should be kept in the loop with plans for the future. I don't really care about competitors catching up, as long as Evernote proves that they are truly listening to their users. It's a shame that there's people here who have been asking for anchors since 2011, and we still have no idea weather the EV team is going to take that into consideration at any point in time...

This has been a request for the last ten year, it's time for the Evernote team to take this seriously into consideration. I also find quite disappointing that there's no wishlist website where users can submit features requests and track what's in the backlog. I am not happy paying for Premium and have no tool to get involved in new developments.

Thanks @agsteele, that was very helpful. For those on a mac with Catalina installed, attached is the path that worked for me. I will create a copy of this folder and its content, even though the export feature is really what I am looking for: something that I can, in the future, move to another product, if unhappy with Evernote.