To the global community of Evernote customers who explored Tasks in Early Access, incorporated it into their lives, found bugs, and answered surveys, we’d like to say:
Thank you.
We’ve now released Tasks for general availability—representing a huge step in Evernote’s evolution—and you helped make it happen. Your specific, ongoing feedback is focusing our attention on the features that matter most to you, and which you need to stay on top of your day.
Developing powerful new functionality like Tasks doesn’t happen overnight, so we want to be clear that we heard all your feedback, and we took note (in Evernote, of course!). You told us what you love about Tasks, as well as what you don’t love, and we’re using that to improve the feature with every release, with the goal of making it even more valuable to you.
Here’s an update on the suggestions we’ve already acted upon and what we’re looking forward to focusing on next.
New features you want to see
You’ll be glad to know that many of the features you told us are important were already on our radar after the private beta of Tasks, but your collective feedback has helped refine our priorities. Some, like Assignable Tasks and a Tasks widget for Home, we’ve already delivered and are available right now in our new lineup of subscription plans. Others are currently in the research & design phase—and will be released in the coming months—while still more are part of our longer-term roadmap. Here’s a shortlist of the most popular feature requests:
- Create and manage recurring tasks
- Make hyperlinks in tasks clickable when the tasks are in a note (and not just in your Tasks View)
- Add task due dates to your calendar
- Allow tasks in table cells
- Create sub-tasks
- Use more than one flag color
- Forward emails into Evernote and have them become tasks
- Voice capture integrations
If your favorite feature request isn’t currently on this list, don’t despair. As we roll out new functionality, we’re continually refreshing the list of ideas we work from.
Usability improvements you’ve asked for
The way you interface with an app or feature is crucial. How it works for you is just as important as what it does for you. With that in mind, we’ve already refined the look and feel of Tasks in tangible ways in response to your feedback:
- Notes in which all tasks are marked complete no longer appear in your Tasks View unless you have “Show completed tasks” selected.
- You can navigate to the parent note of a task on desktop and web by clicking on the name of the note in the task details screen—and we’re bringing the same capability to iOS and Android in an upcoming release.
- You can use the Tab key to navigate between elements in the task details screen.
The following updates are solidly on our radar, with some of them already in the design phase:
- More dense display of tasks in both the Tasks View and in your notes.
- Improved layout of completed tasks in the note editor.
- More flexible formatting of tasks in the note editor—for example, the ability to indent tasks as part of an outline.
Seeing the big picture, together
Perhaps the most interesting feedback of all has been your ‘blue sky’ requests. These go beyond a specific screen or capability, and cut right to the heart of what Tasks can do for you and what it means for your relationship with Evernote. They’re highly complex in their nature, encompassing feature or design changes that have implications far beyond Tasks. To give but one example, if you can tag tasks, should you be able to tag other in-note features such as attachments, tables, and photos? Or would that add unnecessary complexity? Compelling arguments can be made both for and against such a capability, and indeed, we’ve already had some lively internal discussions!
Feedback such as this falls into a category of problems that are harder to solve, as they have broader impact on the app. Thinking through the ramifications of these more fundamental changes and building them out takes time, with multiple rounds of design, development, and testing needed to ensure the best possible experience for our customers. But we’re committed to understanding these challenges and thinking through how best to approach them.
At the end of the day, the entire Evernote team is dedicated to making Tasks a game-changing feature for our customers, and we’ll continue to invest and innovate on it in close partnership with you. Please keep your feedback and ideas coming by answering surveys and participating in our Early Access program (the best way to get the inside scoop). We’re actively listening to what you have to say, and we value your input as, together, we build the Evernote of the future—one that goes beyond helping you “Remember anything,” so you can accomplish anything.
