(Archived) New Clipper is Causing Me to Rethink Premium Status

[Perfect Faro 14]

Like many people, I'm having issues with the new Web Clipper: it simply doesn't work in Chrome. I tried to go back to the older version of the extension, but because I now have two-factor authentication turned on, it won't accept my password. So, I'm stuck: the new version doesn't work, and I can't revert back to the old version (well, I guess I could turn off two-factor authentication and see if that works, but then that would be step backwards in terms of security and functionality, wouldn't it?). A quick look at the number of scathing reviews in the Chrome webstore shows that many, many people are unhappy about the new version, and are having exactly the same issues that I am. This has been a debacle from the beginning, and Evernote should seriously rethink how new products are tested and released: this was an unmitigated failure (and yes, I know some people are using it without issue: that's irrelevant; if it doesn't work flawlessly for everyone, then it's broken, period).

 

I am EXTREMELY worried about what this means for the upcoming upgrade to the Windows version of the desktop app: I rely on Evernote for a great deal of my work, and if this is a preview of what we can expect from the company's new product, I absolutely will NOT be upgrading to the new version until I am convinced that it works the way it's supposed to. I paid for the Premium version of the service, and I expect that in exchange for my money, the company will allow me to continue to use the product in exactly the same way it worked when I first contracted the service. If they are going to break things and disrupt how I work, then they won't be receiving any further money from me. If this is a sign of things to come with their business model, I'm going to be backing up all of my files and closing down my account.

[Kazum 7]

This is a perfect argument from the workflow perspective. I love the innovation that Evernote has in its products compared to MSFT ones, but the innovation can sometimes be disruptive, and it's not always a good thing.

It seems to be a gamble to stay on a boat, building your workflow and personal knowledge data on that platform, not knowing whether it will head towards an unfavorable direction.

 

Your mention of product testing is another great point . Evernote folks should know what they are doing in general, and I'm less worried about the lack of prototype testing for the desktop version. But a web clipper is probably not as important as it seems to be to go through a formal product testing cycle, but guess what, it CAN BE the most important part of the whole workflow, and if it's broken, the whole offering is broken.

[warsurplus 11]

Kazum makes an excellent point.  The clipper may not receive the same rigor of testing that the desktop application may undergo, but for me the clipper is a necessity for my workflow.  So much so, that without it, Evernote as a service is much less valuable to me as a customer.

 

Another point...even if the product as is now published was thoroughly tested for functionality, that doesn't imply it was tested for usability.  The testers may be tasked with verifying that the latest feature from developer does indeed work, but that feature set or product design may be flawed.

 

As for the posts suggesting the development team is simply giving us customers what we asked for, maybe only a vocal minority asked for these features.  Gleaning input from the user base should be performed in a scientific manner.  Maybe this is what was done and I'm in the minority of users that prefer the old version, but seeing the number of complaints, especially on the Chrome web store makes me think differently.

[anjoschu 67]

I, too, currently have trouble with the Chrome Web Clipper. In addition to a few usability and translation problems (e.g. Enter doesn't complete a partially matched tag), I frequently get the show-stopping "Cannot save clip" error.

 

I'm pretty sure they are already working a fix to the problems. I would also find it better if Evernote were more conservative when making big changes ensure sufficient quality with every release. They had a bad quality phase on iOS as well, but this has improved greatly. So I'm confident that the worst clipper problems will be fixed shortly.

 

Off-topic: Please understand that this is a user-to-user forum and the regulars here are very committed on trying to help other users with questions and problems, voluntarily investing their spare time to do so. They want to help solve problems. As such, the primary addressees of your posts are always other users. You will see that posts which immediately combine a problem statement with a threat invoke doubts whether the poster indeed wants help form their peers, which can be frustrating to users who are here to help. While the forums are a good place to e.g. discuss suggestions for improvements, commentary which is directly meant for Evernote is best addressed to Evernote via the support system.

 

We can use this thread to collect feedback for Evernote on what to fix. I'll start:

 

- "Cannot save clip" error, examples here: http://discussion.evernote.com/topic/42146-evernote-cannot-save-clip-error/

- Enter key should autocomplete partial tag matches

- The English verb "File" means "einordnen" or "archivieren" in German (not "Datei", which is a noun)

- The second option is not completely readable in German and there's no tooltip: "Artikel ohne Fo..."

- Clicking into the note title field should select the complete original title (easier to overwrite)

- No option to use the default notebook as the default (there are no options besides "last notebook" and "smart filing")

- It would be nice if you could edit the note title directly from the clipper column (without clicking on the notebook or tag item first -- which, by the way, is not an intuitive way to change the note title)

[DVins 0]

+1