(Archived) Any chance of making the user interface less ugly?

[mdcowles 1]

I have recently started using Evernote on my Mac and my iPhone and I'm coming to the conclusion that they're very valuable. But I was put off at first and continue to enjoy using the program less than I otherwise would because I think that the user interface is really pretty ugly. (Controls are scattered all over the left pane, the Search Notes menu choice does nothing if the toolbar is hidden and is equivalent to clicking in the search field if it's shown, and screen real-estate is devoted to un-hidable formatting controls in the right pane, for example.)

I'd be happy to spend some time writing up my opinions if there were a decent chance that someone with the power to act on them would read them. I think that Evernote could get more users if a user's first impression of it weren't that a bucket of user-interface components had been spilled across the screen.

Regards,

Matt

[Askebob 1]

Hm, to be honest, i really don't have a problem with the current interface, personally i think that the simplicity and the fact that it doesn't explode into the palette of a rainbow, makes it easier to focus on actually working with it. With that said, i wouldn't mind options for different skin, because you know, everyone likes things pretty, but i want the option to go back to the way it is right now, classic style!

[aamichiganfan 0]

Dear Evernote Team,

Thanks so much for your wonderful product! You do a great job. Please consider the following request: May we have the option of changing the ui color to something other than green? I understand that the green is trademark, but the number 1 favorite color in the world is blue at 40 percent. I know it seems trivial, but for a graphic designer it's huge. Thank you for your time.

[JMichaelTX 4,117]

Providing Preferences/Options settings, and multiple ways of achieving something are apples and oranges IMO.

For example, I can assign tags to notes by at least 3 different methods.

This has nothing to do with User Preferences about how the app should behave.

For example, you might have a Preference for Confirming Tag delete.

It wouldn't matter if you have one way, or 100 ways of deleting tags, if "Confirm Tag Deletion" as set to "Yes", then the user would be asked to confirm each tag deletion regardless of method.

IMO, design of Preferences module should consider the following:

1. Default values for all preferences should be that which you expect most users to want.
   
   • If this is done, well, then many users may never need to visit the Preferences section.
     
   • This keeps it simple for most users
     

[*]Layout of Preference should be logical from the User's perspective

• To confirm it is logical from the User's perspective, you must ask several new users to review
  
• A good example of a BAD layout is MS Outlook -- the worst, most confusing I have ever seen
  
• Provide a top-level Preference of "Basic" or "Advanced" view of Preferences
  
• "Basic" should present the Preferences that say 75-80% of user will want to change
  
• "Advanced" should present all Preferences, but in the same sub-section just immediately below the "Basic" prefs
  
• This means that if "Advanced" is chosen, all prefs (Basic and Adv) are shown on the same screen for a given category/grouping of prefs
  
• "Advanced" could be shown in a differente color and/or in italics.
  
• Don't do what Outlook does -- spread the prefs for a given category over several different screens
  

[*]Option to Reset to Default (for each Tab, and one for ALL Prefs

[*]Provide quick help for each Pref

• Click on the Pref name/caption for a popup that gives a short definition of what it is and what each Pref setting will do
  
• Provide online link in the same popup to a detailed page of definition and discussion of how it can be used and what the effects are
  
• Indicate what the default is and why
  
• If changing the Pref can cause irreversible changes to User's data, then it should be so stated very clearly, and the user should be warned and asked to confirm the change.
  
• This is one area where the help/documentation MUST be provided when the SW is released.
  

[GrumpyMonkey 4,319]

I also could add that sometimes there are different ways to do the same thing which might be confusing for new users. It's not bad to have options but too many options to do the same thing might be confusing

Multiple ways to perform a task (drag and drop, main menu option, right click, or a shortcut key) don't usually cause confusion in my experience. Proper implementation and good design ought to mitigate any potential for confusion. Generally speaking, I am a less is more kind of guy. At any rate, I am certainly not advocating that Evernote designers make the interface worse!

[May 268]

I also could add that sometimes there are different ways to do the same thing which might be confusing for new users. It's not bad to have options but too many options to do the same thing might be confusing

[jefito 5,589]

No worries -- I wasn't out to ruffle your feathers, er, pill your monkey fur.

Good to head it off before we fell into violent agreement...

[GrumpyMonkey 4,319]

thanks jefito for the clarification.

i can see that i was unclear and a bit too indignant. i should have said that i want to accomplish certain tasks (tagging multiple notes at once). i really don't care how this is done, as long as the feature is readily apparent in the interface. In windows you can easily find it in the menu and there is a shortcut command. in the mac there is neither. i agree that we learn certain behaviors, but i would call an interface "intuitive" when it builds on what we have learned to perform functions.

in this case, at least in my brain, it is unintuitive to select a bunch of notes and drag them into a tiny icon on the left panel. it is intuitive for me to drag that tag into a note (as the documentation directs us to do), and unintuitive (to my mind) that we cannot select a buch of notes and drag that tag into them in the same way. do you see what i mean? the movement doesn't scale up as it ought to, but goes the opposite direction (notes into tag instead of tag into notes). perhaps i would have been better off not having read the documentation, where i "learned" how notes and tags interact with one another in the interface.

the important point that i want to stress is that you can apply the tag in more than one way--one of these is made obvious by having both an icon and a field for typing it. a poor user interface (in my opinion) fails to leverage conventions, provides no place to find help to accomplish a task (no information in the app), and lacks multiple paths to completion (right clicking, menu, or shortcut keys). being undocumented only adds insult to injury, and users like me grow all the more annoyed when we take the time to read the documentation only to discover later that the feature is only available through oral transmission (if it is there, i was never able to find it). ugh. anyhow, i would call this feature a massive failure in design. it is a great feature that developers spent time and energy to make, but it is almost entirely unaccessible to users. the windows interface is just a lot better in this respect and i hope the development teams are talking to one another. another vote here for parity.

**as a side note, the ios apps are almost universally poorly documented and often have only one way to accomplish a task. i think this is awful, but it is the apple way. we are only saved from utter chaos by the conventions that good developers (like evernote) diligently follow. even then (as we found in another thread) long-time users and even employees at evernote can be completely oblivious to a major (and oft-requested) feature. but, this thread is about osx, so i will stop my diatribe here**

back to to the interface--evernote is maturing into a really powerful app. rather than go the way of itunes (what a nightmare, even though it somehow manages to perform tasks that usually take multiple apps to do) i hope that evernote will tighten things up and create a really beautiful (good balance of form and function) interface.

[jefito 5,589]

@jefito i'm going to double-down here and say that this perfectly illustrates the poor design that plagues the evernote user interface, especially in the mac version. how would i "learn" to do that? it is a feature that neither exists in the menu nor in the documentation, and is only discoverable by experimentation. windows has it in the menu, so why can't the mac.

The operation that you originally cited -- dragging a selection of notes to a tag in the the tag list -- does not exist in any Windows menu; it doesn't use the menu. Really, it can't be in a menu: what would that look like?

So what the Windows client does have is Assign Tags, which as has been extensively noted, in many threads, should exist on the Mac. But this is a different operation all together, as the former just adds the tag you dropped it on to each of the set of notes; the latter allows you to edit the tags of a set of notes, in a separate dialog.

As suggested, you would learn the existing operation in the same way that you learned how to drag files around in the visual representation of a file system: you read the docs, someone showed you, you experimented, whatever. If it's not in the docs, then it should be, but that's not a UI problem. The UI for that operation is easy, once you know that it's there; that you didn't know it was there doesn't make it intrinsically any less easy to do. I think that making an operation like that be readily discoverable (as opposed to exposing an operation as, say, a menu item or a toolbar icon) is not particularly easy.

the same goes (as you noted) for all of my other complaints. it's mystery meat design, and as much as i like evernote, i don't sit around and play with things just to see what happens. i am trying to accomplish certain tasks, and when i cannot (and the feature exists), i consider this to be a design failure. it seems to me that you are saying that we should blame the user (in this case me) for not being able to find what essentially amounts to an easter egg.

I never laid any blame on you or anyone; sorry that you got that impression.

Personally, I don't think this is a very good design philosophy for a user interface.

I believe that very few things that we do with computers are actually intuitively easy; they've got to be learned. What's common knowledge now was not common knowledge 25, 15 or even 5 years ago. I started with MS-DOS; where are we now? Once we've learned a few tricks, a few interface conventions, then an application developer should be able to leverage them in like situations. However, not everything that you might put into an application is like other common scenarios, so you can't always rely on common knowledge in all situations: Gotta learn something new. No blame is attached in my eyes for gaps like that; it's just a fact of life.

Again, I wouldn't call the interface "ugly," but surely there is considerable room for improvement.

And that's where concrete suggestions help, which is what I'd urge the original poster, and you, and anyone else, to supply.You did, and I pretty much agreed with yours.

[GrumpyMonkey 4,319]

@jefito

i'm going to double-down here and say that this perfectly illustrates the poor design that plagues the evernote user interface, especially in the mac version. how would i "learn" to do that? it is a a feature that neither exists in the menu nor in the documentation, and is only discoverable by experimentation. windows has it in the menu, so why can't the mac. the same goes (as you noted) for all of my other complaints.

it's mystery meat design, and as much as i like evernote, i don't sit around and play with things just to see what happens. i am trying to accomplish certain tasks, and when i cannot (and the feature exists), i consider this to be a design failure. it seems to me that you are saying that we should blame the user (in this case me) for not being able to find what essentially amounts to an easter egg.

Personally, I don't think this is a very good design philosophy for a user interface. Again, I wouldn't call the interface "ugly," but surely there is considerable room for improvement.

@dlu

i really wish i was on lion, but unfortunately, one of the applications i use every day has compatibility issues. half a year has gone by and they still haven't solved them. whatever issues i have with evernote's user interface, they pale in comparison to my rage about this problem. i cannot upgrade to a new computer until this gets sorted out. when ivy bridge comes out i will be a very grumpy monkey.

[dlu 628]

2. more options for changing the display. i don't need to see my notebooks and tags all of the time, so let me remove that pane.

If you're on Lion, hit the Hide button in the Favorites Bar

[dlu 628]

So whether or not I have power, is probably debatable, but I'd be happy to add to my leisure reading.

[jefito 5,589]

evernote gets a lot of things right. but, can we honestly say that it is easy to use? i've been using the osx version for months and only recently learned (from these forums) that i can select a batch of notes and drag them into a tag icon in order to apply the tag to all of them. there is no command in the menu to indicate this functionality. i am dumbfounded, and rather peeved, because i wasted time installing evernote in my windows machine just to do this silly task. surely there is room for improvement. do you all agree with ddd that it is perfect?

Well, let's see; you missed a feature that makes it easy to use (an easy way to tag multiple items), but does that make it less easy to use? No -- it just means that somewhere along the line you didn't learn how to do that. Much like learning how to drag files and folders around your file system, you needed to learn it somewhere. Once you learn it, it's easy to use. I'm having a difficult time imagining what menu command could possibly be an analogue of the drag/drop operation; it's is not inherently discoverable in the menu. How do you make such a thing discoverable? Seems natural these days to try to drag things around; the UI should help you as you pass over various targets. This particular example appears to be a problem of education rather than UI; tutorials, videos, documentation, all of those should help.

Note that I am not saying that it Evernote's UI is perfect. I just don't think that that was such a great example of its imperfection.

1. more options in the menus. there are things i can do that cannot be found in the menus. why?

Sure, where appropriate; see above.

2. more options for changing the display. i don't need to see my notebooks and tags all of the time, so let me remove that pane. when i try to squish the evernote window it collapses in an ungainly way (OSX) because it forces all three panes to be open.

Windows client can do that; Mac should be able to as well.

3. use colors with more contrast. gray and white are note so great.

I believe that colors probably should be configurable (we're in the same situation on Windows), but I don't push it that much.

4. provide a simple view for times when we are just entering notes and want evernote as a tiny window in the corner. right now it just takes up too much space on small screens.

Again, you can pretty much do this on the Windows client (you can run without the left panel and without any note list); Mac should be able to do so too.

[GrumpyMonkey 4,319]

i am not sure that ugly and pretty are useful in this context. i appreciate a pretty interface, but that certainly isn't my main priority. i used like / dislike, but that is kind of vague and subjective.

maybe we should be focusing more on well-designed or well-engineered. i think you need to have a balance between form and function. practically speaking, i want the interface to be unobtrusive and to require little or no additional thought to accomplish tasks. adjectives that come to mind are simple, clear, clean, uncluttered, consistent, familiar, etc. i don't want to be annoyed by it.

evernote gets a lot of things right. but, can we honestly say that it is easy to use? i've been using the osx version for months and only recently learned (from these forums) that i can select a batch of notes and drag them into a tag icon in order to apply the tag to all of them. there is no command in the menu to indicate this functionality. i am dumbfounded, and rather peeved, because i wasted time installing evernote in my windows machine just to do this silly task. surely there is room for improvement. do you all agree with ddd that it is perfect?

no. i am not looking for pretty, necessarily. but, i do think things could be organized better. here are my suggestions:

1. more options in the menus. there are things i can do that cannot be found in the menus. why?

2. more options for changing the display. i don't need to see my notebooks and tags all of the time, so let me remove that pane. when i try to squish the evernote window it collapses in an ungainly way (OSX) because it forces all three panes to be open.

3. use colors with more contrast. gray and white are note so great.

4. provide a simple view for times when we are just entering notes and want evernote as a tiny window in the corner. right now it just takes up too much space on small screens.

[BurgersNFries 2,407]

I agree that pretty apps are nice. But I definitely prefer function over form. IMO, valid complaints are that something doesn't work like it's supposed to. Complaining b/c it's not purty is pretty silly & IMO probably taken with a grain of salt by the developers. YMMV.

[jefito 5,589]

So here's how you do it. You write up your stuff in a legible, reasonable, presentable way, without pointing the sensationalistic 'Ugly' finger at it. Evernote staff read all the posts, as noted; they may not reply, also as noted. Various interlopers (e.g., Evernote users) may reply; that's just par for the course here.

So is the UI keeping the uptake growth rate down? Maybe, but probably not by much (the point is very much debatable, but without any evidence, it's like arguing baseball -- great fun for the barroom, but rarely conclusive). Evernote already has a fair number of users who may not be so sensitive to UI issues as you are.

[ddd 1]

I actually really like the desktop user interface.

No actually I LOVE the desktop user interface.

Its actually the one thing that caused me to use EN in the first place, for the very reason that the OP dislikes it; the controls are "scattered" to the left: everything is set out linearly; from left to right, you are able to find the notebooks, and then notes, both sections take up only the bare minimum of space, leaving the large section on the right for the actual word processing which actually needs to be large in order for you to work on it, and is pretty much as wide as any word processor which is real asset as anything narrower would make it very difficult for you to work properly, and if you really want to you can open the note in its own window.

I actually think its the best use of screen real estate, and the best feature of EN.

Perfect layout. Dont change a thing EN, new users need EN to grow on them, thats all.

[Metrodon 2,184]

Evernote staff read most posts on here - although they aren't under any obligation to respond to any (it's a user forum).

The chances are that they will see what your thoughts, whether you get a response or whether it has any influence on the apps moving forward is another thing....

[May 268]

I'd be happy to spend some time writing up my opinions if there were a decent chance that someone with the power to act on them would read them.

I'd read them.

Seriosly though I think it won't hurt to share your ideas. I disliked evernote desktop interface at first but then got used to it similarly to GrumpyMonkey

[GrumpyMonkey 4,319]

i agree. i am familiar with the interface now and i suppose it is starting to look good to me, but i do remember my dislike of it when i first started using evernote.