dconstruct workshop - handling feedback

2008

Photo credit: Flickr user ‘roadman22’

Handling large-scale community feedback

Mozilla.org – 2004

Workshop: “Handling large-scale community feedback” 2008

Mozilla.org – 2004I don't like it a bit. What’s wrong with the old one?

Looks like your average small company website.

Keep the old colors and ditch the new ones. It's too

depressing.

IMHO the current design looks MUCH better than

this mess.


“““

“

Feedback isn’t binary • Much more than a simple “it’s good” or “it sucks”

• Many factors:

• Timing

• User type

• Setting

• Community type

• Etc...


How do you get feedback?


• How are you involved in the generation of user

feedback?

• How are you involved in interpreting feedback?

Young vs Established• Pownce is relatively young

• 250,000 users

• Just over a year old, 7 months out of beta

• Digg is relatively old

• 3+ million users and 25+ million uniques/month

• Almost 4 years old


• Feedback has less volume

• Less feedback is easier to parse

• Less feedback makes it harder to find patterns

• People feel connected to the site’s growth

• Positive, energetic, forgiving

• Nimble and responsive site


Young vs Established

Young vs Established• Feedback has more volume

• Difficult to parse and handle

• Patterns are less prone to error

• People have invested themselves

• Patterns and familiarities have formed

• Self aware communities and cliques exist

• Expectations of performance have been created

• And, your business may be slower too...


Types of feedback

Types of feedbacka


• Different types require different responses, carry

different weights

Positive feedback

Types of feedbacka


The new stuff looks great!! Now I know what

you’ve been working so hard on!!! Dad“Wow, this is so much better than the old

design. Now that I’ve had a chance to use it, I

love it. Thanks.“

Bug reports

Types of feedbacka


When I select a username I get a 404 error.

Can you guys look into it?“The thing jumps around after I click on the

other thing. It’s annoying. Please fix it, thanks.“

Negative feedback

Types of feedbacka


I want it to be like it was before...

I hate it! (the designer should be fired!!)

It doesn’t do something I need...

It would be easy just to...

It’s ok, but what took so long?

“““““

Expert feedback

Types of feedbacka


I am going to both share my opinion on

what the problems are and actually

address them...

“

Implicit feedback

Types of feedbacka


• Observing user behavior

• Objective metrics

• Speaks for the non-commenters

• People don’t do what they say

• Digg commenters are typical of this: “That’s why

I never come here anymore”!!

Reacting to feedback

Reacting to feedbackb


• First step: Don’t do anything!

• Immediate reaction will be to go back to the old way

• Hesitate to create a ‘back’ switch

• Don’t paint yourself into corners

• Don’t end up implementing a patchy fix instead

of seeing the problem

Reacting to feedback

Reacting to feedbackb


• Wait for a period and then collect the feedback

• Identify themes and strong ideas

• Try to make quantifiable judgements

• Cherry pick great ideas (especially from experts!)

• Take implicit feedback seriously... could be the

opposite of the explicit feedback

Riots, petitions, mass-defection threats, etc.

Handling the extremes

Extreme feedbackc


Riots, petitions, mass-defection threats, etc.

Handling the extremes

Extreme feedbackc


• Take feedback seriously, but don’t sway your vision and don’t panic

• BE AS HONEST AS YOU CAN BE

• You don’t have to go into technical specifics, but...

• Don’t be unnecessarily vague

• Try (key word!) to get out in front of issues...

Questions

?


dconstruct workshop - handling feedback

Design

old colors

flickr user roadman22

current design

better thanthis mess

average small company

new ones

whats wrong