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Do user forums sometimes stop software from improving?
Target:
true, the only thing preventing the development process is the developer, but users can and do hinder the process by not providing feedback (ask any developer)
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Well, this is a reverse issue in my opinion.
There's a difference between too much feedback overload and too little.
Too much and it's on the developer to filter it out.
Too little and it's on the developer to make it easier to generate feedbacks.
Just two different animals in my opinion.
-Paul Keith (June 25, 2010, 12:26 AM)
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not necessarily different animals, but certainly different sides of the same coin
Like I said, 99% of users will probably never contact the developers of an app no matter how easy they make it to contact them (there's another thread on this somewhere on the forum)
As an example, I provide support to my workgroup with automation (basically some screenscraping scripts and a bunch Excel macro's/templates). The inspiration/motivation for these all came out of my head (ie nil input form the group), and a significant portion of the development was done in my own time.
5 years on and I can probably still count the amount of feedback comments I've received on 1 hand (that excludes comments like 'this is good...'). I know that there have been issue's, but I've only ever found out about them by accident.
Now i work with these people everyday. They can email me. They can pick up the phone and call me. Some of them can even walk over and tap me on the shoulder.
But they don't, they complain amongst themselves and continue to put up with a bug that I could (and would) fix.
The really irritating things is that they routinely call me and ask questions that they would have known the answer to if only they'd read the copious destructions I supply with each tool
I won't go so far as to say this happens everywhere, but I suspect that it's indicative of a common behaviour
Finally, this is another different issue which deals with the conversational structure limits of forums as per my post here.
(Ok, I admit that thread doesn't have anything to do with this topic but I just want to get more people to reply to that.)
-Paul Keith (June 25, 2010, 12:26 AM)
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hehe, and i quote 'Too little and it's on the developer to make it easier to generate feedbacks.'
Paul Keith:
not necessarily different animals, but certainly different sides of the same coin
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See, this is where we definitely disagree. I did thought you meant different sides of the same coin but I just can't see how they are.
Like I said, 99% of users will probably never contact the developers of an app no matter how easy they make it to contact them (there's another thread on this somewhere on the forum)
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This is a case of self-fulfilling prophecy. Right now there are many feedback systems that aren't just optimized and many of them are forms.
For every 99% of the mythical user who never contact the developers, there's a 99% chance of developers not contacting users ala this.
Not that developers should hire expensive advertisers and marketers and not that there's no risk of generating few attention but the point is...as of now...it's culture.
People especially people with little expertise generally fear sending feedback because they fear the developer isn't really interested and they have no way of replying.
I at least know the surface importance of CSS for example but when I contact a blog service provider about a theme problem that they provide and they come back with "IF you know CSS, then you can do this and that." - It makes me feel apprehensive already.
Imagine smaller developers who can't have the time to contact you all the time just to say thanks and then even more ignorant to the internet users who already feel scared with clicking any forms.
That inherent culture is just a recipe for little to no feedback.
Now i work with these people everyday. They can email me. They can pick up the phone and call me. Some of them can even walk over and tap me on the shoulder.
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See this is why I feel it's a different animal.
In a company setting it's a whole lot different from the software situation.
I don't have experience on that side either but if you hear stuff like 20 percent time concept then you realize, corporations or even small businesses are a different animal from feedback gathering on a blind and grasping scale.
It seems like it should be the same. It seems like it should even be the more conclusive evidence of the similarities (because as you said, these are people you work with)
...but for some reason it's not. I don't know why but...it's not.
If you throw a managerial or project management idea at a grand general group of internet users and even small FOSS groups, they fall... their just two different Voltrons
Imagine if you apply and switch the members of Vehicle Voltron into Lion Voltron....they just fall apart or they should.
Both of them are giant robots. Both of them are robots that transform by combining.
...but if you look at the specifics, Vehicle Voltron's team is organized for Land, Air and Sea while Lion Voltron's team is to guard and defend the planet.
I'm not sure if the analogy fits with this situation in general but at some point, I think it does. I think co-workers are a lot more dependent yet distant towards their company software. I even pissed a working girl once when I asked her what's the flaws of adapting OpenOffice insteaad of MS Office from her experience.
...and for some reason, you could hear in her tone that it's like I'm asking her to say something dirty and yet I'm merely asking her for her own experience and this isn't as a required job or anything. We were merely acquaintances talking.
In the end she threw out the fact that there was no seminar or introduction class and the topic ended there because she sounds so pissed off.
Can you imagine even a casual user who don't know OpenOffice on an internet forum reacting that badly towards a simple question?
It's just...I don't see the coin. I see the animals.
hehe, and i quote 'Too little and it's on the developer to make it easier to generate feedbacks.'
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:P
Paul Keith:
Although not holding the same question, I think I found the equivalent question of this problem in Quora:
http://www.quora.com/For-great-social-products-do-product-leaders-listen-carefully-and-respond-to-user-feedback-or-do-they-mostly-just-trust-their-own-instincts
Check it out Jibz. They may hold some extra answers to your question. (although it doesn't answer the issue of the effect of forums in general.)
tslim:
The problem is that a workaround is just that .. a way around the actual problem, not solving it. And my fear is that sometimes having these user forums where power users propagate the workarounds they found and use to new users will stop the software developers from realizing maybe there is something that should be changed here.
They may monitor the forums and read the posts, but they may also get a "problem solved" kind of feeling when they see a power user posting a workaround.
What do you think?
-Jibz (June 24, 2010, 05:25 AM)
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I think I cen agree 50% with you.
When someone suggest a workaround to a software problem, particularly, if that someone is a representative of the developer company or the software author himself... then chances is there won't be a fix/change/rectification soon.
However, the above is not limited to 'user forum', the workaround suggetion could happen in a form of support email (to you) as a response of feedback system. So the real hinder is not cause by 'user forum', it is the attitude of the developer.
My believe is:
Only software with good future (never stop in the progress of growing better and better) and serious developer(s) can afford a use forum. Otherwise, the software company will either find a thousand reasons to not providing user forum or stop an existing one .
brahman:
the copious destructions I supply with each tool
-Target (June 25, 2010, 12:55 AM)
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Do the tools self-destruct or are you blowing up the user?
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