Evernote Business & V5 - a Review, sort of.

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I wanted to run a quick review of Evernote Business which launched a few days ago but the software and experience is so bad that I'm finding it difficult.

I wanted to change to Evernote Business because I need the sharing functionality that isn't available in EV Premium (**EDIT this is now available in V5 2012-12-18 **) - even though I'm really just using it for my wife and I.If the sharing in EV premium wasn't so badly thought out, I'd still be using that!

My bugs with the user interface are many, I'm using a fully patched new Macbook Pro. Instead of a real review, here’s the list of bugs I found in the first few hours of use:

  1. Business library - I can't right click and change the settings of the notebook. (description, name etc)
  2. I can't drag and drop notebooks in the list of stacks and notebooks under "notebooks" in the sidebar. (**EDIT this is now available in V5 2012-12-18 **)
  3. I can't publish notebooks to the business library in the list view of all notes, I have to hit the confusing sharing icon even though there is a context menu available.
  4. I can't right click in notebooks and just create a new business notebook.
  5. I can't right click a notebook anywhere and publish it to the business library.
  6. Business Library - I click and in takes 5-10 seconds to appear.
  7. I can't click on a notebook in the business library to explore it.
  8. I can't view the business library as a list, with important data like last updated, or date created.
  9. I can't manually reorder stacks, or notebooks in the notebook view
  10. I can't convert a notebook from a personal, to a Business notebook, I have to make a new one & drag and drop notes.
  11. I can't publish a business notebook to the web. I use this functionality all the time.

I want EV to rock my world, I really need it to - but it's letting me down and that makes me sad. I wouldn’t touch EV Business with a ten foot barge pole until these issues are fixed, or addressed in some way.

Follow up on this post - 2012-12-18

As you can see from the comments, I got some good feedback from Evernote themselves, as well as an acknowledgement that things were not satisfactory with the interface.

I'd like to pint out that a number of these issues have been fixed and I have every reason to expect all of the issues to be dealt with in some way. Personally I have moved back to a personal premium account as the sharing issues I had with EV up to V5, have been partially mitigated by the new release.

I still believe the interface has been poorly tested, it doesn't account for the mental model some users have of the system and has functional holes were I would expect frictionless flow.

However I still have hope, and for now, I'm staying on the good ship EverNote.

Comments - please give me your thoughts.

A 3 step guide to putting yourself forward for advertised work

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Applying for a piece of work you’ve seen advertised online, or elsewhere is a tricky business.

Too much selling or long, key word stuffed paragraphs gets you dropped in the bin, a single line saying “Hi” gets you to the same place.

Here’s your checklist:

  1. Introduce yourself, give your portfolio address (check the link, I’ve sent dead ones before) and explicitly state your years of experience.
  2. Give 2, maximum 3 examples of feeding key points of the brief back to the potential client, explaining how you can help with that issue and the benefit to the client (bigger business, more footfall, more conversions). 1 Paragraph per point, 2, maybe 3 sentences per paragraph.
  3. Offer to meet or communicate further to discuss.

That’s it. Nothing more, nothing less. Think of the clients job as the same as looking through dozens of CVs, don’t give them an excuse to bin yours.

After a week, message them and ask if they had any further questions and if they have made a decision to go with someone else, what feedback they could offer you on your specific application.

Learn from that feedback.

Repeat.

Principles of User Interface Design

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I just read an excellent declaration of the principals of UX, "Principles of User Interface Design"

Clarity is the first and most important job of any interface. To be effective using an interface you've designed, people must be able to recognize what it is, care about why they would use it, understand what the interface is helping them interact with, predict what will happen when they use it, and then successfully interact with it. While there is room for mystery and delayed gratification in interfaces, there is no room for confusion. Clarity inspires confidence and leads to further use. One hundred clear screens is preferable to a single cluttered one.

It's a good use of ten minutes.

My GTD / Omnifocus Weekly Review Checklist

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There are many. This is mine.

I use Omnifocus to track my tasks so some terms may not apply to you. My weekly reminder to do my weekly review, links directly to this post and I keep it visible whilst I review all the items in my bucket.

Is it done?

I don't tick off everything as I do it and nor does anyone else. Have a quick check to see if you’ve completed the project since the last review, or if anyone else has.

Should it be be on hold?

Will you make any actions on this project before it’s next review date? If not, put it on hold. This enables you to better focus on tasks you actually can do - your available task perspectives won’t be filled with tasks you can’t do right now.

Do you still care / Is the outcome still needed?

It’s probably been a week since you last did a review, depending on the frequency of review you’ve set for this project - possibly much more. Have your priorities changed? Is this project important any more? No?

Kill it. There are enough genuinely important tasks for you to attend to without adding more. Lose the guilt. drop the task.

If you're reviewing single tasks - should it really be a project?

I have many stacks of single tasks, piles of repeating tasks, lists of articles to read etc. Often, tasks creep in that really should be projects. Remember, a project is anything that takes more than 1 clearly defined step to complete. Breaking tasks down into the smallest practical step is key to actually getting things done.

Is the project described as an outcome?

I find that longer, more descriptive project titles such as “Go on a geeky holiday with your friends in 2013” is a lot easier to use than “Holiday?”. Is your task written as an actual outcome?

“describe in a single sentence the intended successful outcome for the problem or situation” It can help to think of this as writing for someone else - the you of next week really is a different person from the you of today.

If the project is significant, have you leveraged positive affirmation techniques to help it succeed?

I’ve writing a much longer post about this, suffice for now to say that projects of note have two questions asked and answered in the notes field:

  1. Why do I want to achieve the outcome for this project?
  2. What does the project outcome look like?

Is there a clearly defined next action?

Your project will not move on until you have identified (at least) the next specific task which will move you closer to completion.

Is this project stuck?

Reviewed this project more than once without it moving forward? You’re stuck. You might need to change your next action, maybe the existing next action should be split into two, or the order of the project changed.

Are you reviewing this project frequently enough? Or too often?

Review as infrequently as you can (to reduce admin overheads) but as frequently as you need to (to ensure things don’t slip entirely or slip back into your head space). Omnifocus defaults to a week, which is a good start but probably isn’t suitable for half or more of your projects. For example, The holiday you’re planning to take in 12 months, from here it’s probably a 3 month review, closer it becomes monthly, within 4 weeks it should probably become weekly. Changing the review frequency of a project is entirely appropriate and should be done as your relationship with the project and the projects relationship with time changes. Appropriate review frequency is a real example of ‘Mind like water’.

What do you think? Any feedback? This is a ‘live’ document that my weekly review reminder links to directly so any improvements or refinements are added into the process constantly. I owe a debt to the writers of this post which is the article I used for reviews prior to writing this.