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Evernote mobile app: prime note taking for business (but OneNote looks better)

by Yannis |April 18th, 2012

Note taking is a very basic, if not unglamorous function of smartphones, yet one that can be of extreme importance to anyone who is using their phones for business purposes. Note taking mobile apps come in all sorts of sizes and specs, from the most basic that just allow the creation of humble text notes, to the most lavish featuring attachments, filing, sharing, text formatting, to-do lists, cloud syncing and integration with other apps.

Evernote has been a popular desktop/cloud-based note taking application for a few years now. The mobile application arrived recently and is available on multiple operating systems and devices. The application’s long list of useful features has ensured it repeatedly tops the note taking app charts.

Note taking feature fest

  • Note creation: Evernote’s note creation comes with some great features that push note taking beyond merely typing a few words on a screen: you can take and add photos, record and add audio files, create lists and task lists, insert links, add tags, format text and add locations.

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Trapped in iPhone app hell: 23 taps to save a web screen grab to Evernote

by Yannis |February 24th, 2012

Despite the millions of apps out there, the rumoured iPad 3, the upcoming Windows 8 and the mythical Google goggles, we are still a long way away from turning digital content consumption and use into a truly seamless experience. Here is a simple example of the hoops I have to jump through to perform what appears to be a simple task: take a full-screen grab of a mobile website page and save it in Evernote along with the URL:

  • Tap 1: To open Safari. Then I type “Furniture Village” into the Google box. The search results comes up.
  • Tap 2: To select the desired search result. The website appears.
  • Tap 3: To place the cursor into the navigation toolbar of Safari.
  • Tap 4: To bring up the text edit menu.
  • Tap 5: To select all.
  • Tap 6: To copy.
  • Tap 7: To go back to the home screen.
  • Tap 8: To open the “Web Capture” app (it allows me to capture the full length of a mobile web page, but otherwise it is primitive, so I can’t search for a website the same way I do on Safari)
  • Tap 9: On the URL button.
  • Tap 10: On the text box to bring up the text edit menu.
  • Tap 11: To paste.
  • Tap 12: On Return. The website comes up.
  • Tap 13: To capture.
  • Tap 14: To select Camera.
  • Tap 15: To go back to the home screen.
  • Tap 16: To open Evernote.
  • Tap 17: To open the relevant Notebook.
  • Tap 18: To add Note.
  • Tap 19: To select Camera Roll.
  • Tap 20: To select my screen grab to add.
  • Tap 21: On the title box to bring the text edit menu up.
  • Tap 22: To paste URL.
  • Tap 23: To save.

The reasons for this excruciating user experience are not only the limitations of the current mobile interface and some bad app design, but also the fact that apps don’t talk to each other. Efficient, nimble and task-driven, apps are great bits of software – the antidote to big software behemoths born in the 90s and still lingering about. Yet, lack of interoperability turns a smartphone into a pocket or task silos. There are tons of such examples – try to use the Hootsuite app to Tweet about a post on the Mobile RSS app – and unfortunately, they compromise our relationship with technology and content. We are a long way away from content (and tasks) becoming truly free.

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New Beta BBC homepage vs FT web app

by Yannis |September 21st, 2011

If the new BBC homepage is from tabloid Mars, then the FT web app is from broadsheet Venus. It’s a bit unfair comparing the just released BBC homepage with the fully launched and comprehensive FT web app. Nevertheless, it’s worth doing a quick comparison for two reasons: first because both brands are giants of the publishing industry and second because the world of tablets and smartphones is in such a flux that any innovation which might point to a new UX convention ought to get everyone to sit up and take notice.

The new Beta BBC homepage

The FT web app

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Why can’t enterprise software be more like a smartphone?

by Yannis |September 13th, 2011

I use both an iPhone and Salesforce on a daily basis. Comparing the two is like comparing apples (no pun intended) to oranges. But from a user experience point of view, such an improbable comparison could lead to some interesting observations about the past and future of software design philosophy.

A big factor behind the success of smartphones and tablets has been the fulfilment of users’ needs at a micro level. The “there is an app for that” catchphrase perfectly describes the concept of developing each application to solve a particular problem. It is a simple concept consumers understand and, considering the success of smartphones, find very attractive.

Compare this approach to how Salesforce works:

 

 

Of course it’s not just enterprise software that suffers from feature bling; most Microsoft and Adobe programs fall into the same category; Word or Photoshop anyone? There is a lot of talk this year around the future of software development and how the proliferation of mobile apps and the popularity of the Apple App Store are influencing things. But from a user’s point of view, simpler software packages with a bare-bones engine sold at a lower price and a post-sales marketplace of individual features and feature packages is likely to make software use (and purchase) a lot more fun.

 

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Is feature porn killing usability in enterprise software?

by Yannis |July 20th, 2011

Nowadays, everything comes with features: my toothbrush comes with an added tongue scratcher, my morning cereal is fortified with all sorts of stuff and even my air freshener sports a motion detector. Enterprise software is no different; it might not come with added vitamins, but it’s certainly oozing features out of every USB socket.

Lately, we have been working with a number of organisations whose main offering comes with a screen interface:  contact centre solutions, BI software, risk management tools, etc. A common problem many people recognise but most fail to do anything about, is that bad usability can make using all this stuff a daunting task.

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3 ways to design news pages on iPad. Which one is the best?

by Yannis |June 14th, 2011

Over the past 6 months we have been doing quite a lot of tablet-specific UX work here at Skyron, looking at how to organise, style and optimise content-rich pages. A bit of research into news apps reveals that there are 3 schools of thought when it comes to delivering current news content. For the sake of this post, we named them Flowing Stream, Assorted Boxes and Sliding Panels.

Flowing Stream

This type of layout displays the content items into a single or multiple streams that require the user to scroll horizontally to access them all. It is used by brands like Fox News, Sky News and Pulse.

Fox News is the richest layout with each stream serving a different purpose. Bit confusing at first but it all makes sense after a minute or two:

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