Evernote Increases User Retention by Over 15% By Enlisting UserTesting.com for Web, Desktop, and Mobile App Testing

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif., Feb. 25, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- A New York Times 'Top 10 Must-Have App', Evernote is a suite of 19 web, desktop and mobile apps designed for note taking and archiving, helping today's mobile multitaskers remember everything across all of their devices. The company's customer adoption and retention relies heavily on the user experience of its apps across multiple devices, OS versions and platforms. Evernote enlisted the Enterprise Platform of UserTesting.com to:

1. Understand how customers interact with their service across different devices
2. Increase their engagement by improving the discoverability of functionality and
3. Remove stumbling blocks users encounter when signing up and using Evernote.

UserTesting.com provides Evernote with a large, diverse panel of testers who record their screen and voice as they speak their thoughts. This allows Evernote to uncover where its users might get stuck or frustrated while using their apps. UserTesting.com proved so effective that it is now a key part of Evernote's product development lifecycle – after design and development, and before each refine and release phase. To date, results include improved user retention at a rate of over 15%, as well as a dramatic increase in user engagement.

"Our goal is to provide the best user experience possible on every platform from mobile to desktop to browsers," said VP of Product at Evernote, Philip Constantinou. "It's critical that our product teams are independent, can iterate quickly, and can build natively. UserTesting.com fits right into our philosophy. With UserTesting.com panels, we receive invaluable feedback, on demand, and across multiple browsers, operating systems and devices. With UserTesting.com, I know we're making a great product."

Top 5 Benefits of Evernote's Implementation with UserTesting.com

1. Device Agnostic
With UserTesting.com, Evernote product managers and designers can watch the app testers' decisions being made on the screen, as well as where the tester's hands are physically tapping, swiping, and even resting. Because Evernote apps are available on all three screens (PC, mobile, tablet) across a wide array of devices, this feature is critical.

"This was especially informative on Android because of the variety of Android devices in the market and the various ways people use them," said Constantinou. "Through UserTesting.com, we discover devices and fix related ergonomics issues before we release anything to the public."

2. "Fresh Eyes" (From Your Target Audience)
With UserTesting.com, Evernote can select testers that represent specific demographics and target audiences. For Evernote, it was key to get their app in front of users who had never seen it.

"In the past, we used beta testing together with forums to gather early feedback, but UserTesting.com gives us high-fidelity audio/video feedback much more quickly. Also, UserTesting.com lets us try out experimental versions of our applications, which is something we could not do with traditional beta testers," said Constantinou.

3. On-Demand and Lightning Fast
Because of Evernote's rapid development process (especially for mobile apps), Evernote needed a usability testing solution that could keep up with its frequent iterations and agile process. The company ships betas to large populations weekly and pushes releases to the public every six weeks. UserTesting.com delivers user feedback to Evernote within an hour.

"On a slow Friday night, I have been able to push a build to UserTesting.com and receive quality tester videos in 20 minutes! It's addictive to find out almost immediately what people think," said Constantinou.

4. Cost-Effective
UserTesting.com provides fast, affordable feedback. Evernote had completed formal usability studies costing tens of thousands of dollars before enlisting UserTesting.com. "With UserTesting.com's Enterprise Platform, we can make big changes quickly, virtually eliminated the need for expensive and onerous formal studies. We can also set up tests whenever we want at a fraction of the cost," said Constantinou.

5. Easy-To-Use
With UserTesting.com's full-featured dashboard for annotating and sharing clips, Evernote can easily make comments while reviewing video clips to mark key insights and analysis. A built-in clip editor also makes it easy to create presentations to share with the development team. "It's really easy to sit there, watch a video and annotate it. UserTesting.com's interface saves comments in exactly the right place. The whole process is almost effortless," said Constantinou.

"With mobile apps, a good user experience will help you avoid those condemning 1-star reviews; increase download numbers; and drive user retention and engagement," said UserTesting.com CEO, Darrell Benatar. "Evernote is passionate about providing the best user experience to its customers, and we are fortunate to have partnered with them."

About Evernote
Evernote is helping the world remember everything by building innovative products and services that allow individuals to capture, find and interact with their memories. Evernote apps are available on all major computer, web, mobile, and tablet platforms. For more information, please visit www.evernote.com.

About UserTesting.com 
UserTesting.com provides the fastest and most affordable web, desktop and mobile app testing in the market. The company gives marketers, product managers and UX designers, on-demand access to users in their target audience, who deliver audio, video and written feedback on websites or apps in less than one hour.

Used by the top 10 web properties in the U.S., UserTesting.com has run hundreds of thousands of usability tests. UserTesting.com is headquartered in Mountain View, CA. User panels are currently available in the U.S., Canada, and the UK. For more information, visit www.usertesting.com.

Media Contact:
Jennifer Moebius
+1-617-922-8004
[email protected]

SOURCE UserTesting.com