One of the projects I'm working on is to improve how we accept, solicit, process and log user feedback. Users are (quite obviously) often those who have the most to say about how a product works and can be improved, but often it is frustratingly difficult to let anyone know about what little tweak could have changed a frustrating feature into a remarkably wonderful one. Personally, I tend to be very enthusiastic when it comes to automatic feedback (enable usage statistics, yes please!), and also more than happy to press a visible feedback button if I come across something I think could be improved. (I also quite enjoy surveys and even telephone polling, but I fear that's just me...)
However, I pretty much never make an effort if I can't easily see how to send feedback, and I tend to drop out of the process if I have to write much, share personal details or use captchas or similar. Why can't they just make it easy for me?, I think. While my personal anecdotes and preferences don't necessarily mean much, in a user feedback situation, you should be hard pressed to find a solution that makes it too easy to submit your thoughts. With that in mind, I'm looking for a system that can help users let us know when things are bad - or good, although I suspect the inclination for giving positive feedback is rather less frequent? - at the click of a button. Screen grabs (with privacy options), data dumps, stack traces and other technical information should be automatically included. And the feedback should be categorisable, logged, manageable and easy to respond to for customer facing teams in all parts of the business. Easy, peasy, right?
Obviously not - apart from finding the perfect system, which is hard enough in itself, there will undoubtedly be a lot of work integrating it with the technical architecture of the site and securing operational support, as well as processing the data, making it usable for everyone in the best possible way - from the user to the business teams: customer satisfaction and product development, development and operations, management and marketing, and any other teams involved.
So there's a way to go, but I am really happy to have started working on it, and confident that we'll find a solution that will improve as we use it. Without feedback, the only people improving any product will be the ones who develop it, and there is definitely such a thing as being to close to your own babies...
Tuesday, September 20, 2011
Monday, September 19, 2011
What came first - user or product?
Today was my very first day working in a product team, and so a good occasion to start blogging. This blog is intended to be about product management, product analysis and product development concepts, but even more so, it will be about thoughts and reflections on the world of product, and how I learn about these things in a very exciting technology environment and a relatively new product team. I've moved from the marketing team to a new role as Product Analyst, about which I currently know little but am very excited. The role will no doubt evolve as I do and learn more, and hopefully I will be able to write interesting observations throughout the learning process.
The first day has been hugely exciting, and the best thing about it is that I am realising how much fun it will be to work with all these product challenges. This is exactly what I've been wanting to do! The various projects I will be working on or in charge of are all related to issues and areas I care deeply about. One common denominator of these projects is the user - or more correctly the users, as we need to strive for a multitude of different, unique users at the same time. Understanding who these users are, is key to understanding how the product can and should develop. Google famously says 'put the user first, and all else will follow'. While much can be said about Google's real attitude to this quote, especially these days, the sentiment of focusing on the people using your product is both incredibly simple, incredibly difficult and incredibly powerful.
A good product, shaped by existing, future and previous users, and attracting new and returning users, is the goal for most businesses. But how do you go about achieving this? There can be no user without the product, but similarly, a product without users is arguably not a product, but an idea. One of the challenges I look forward to looking into in more detail will be to balance development of a product for future users, while ensuring that the feedback we get (and should get more of) from existing, or even former, users, help us shape the product we deliver today. We are lucky to already have both a product and users, but there are still many new products to deliver, and hopefully countless new users to deliver to - now for the challenge of understanding how to best do both.
The first day has been hugely exciting, and the best thing about it is that I am realising how much fun it will be to work with all these product challenges. This is exactly what I've been wanting to do! The various projects I will be working on or in charge of are all related to issues and areas I care deeply about. One common denominator of these projects is the user - or more correctly the users, as we need to strive for a multitude of different, unique users at the same time. Understanding who these users are, is key to understanding how the product can and should develop. Google famously says 'put the user first, and all else will follow'. While much can be said about Google's real attitude to this quote, especially these days, the sentiment of focusing on the people using your product is both incredibly simple, incredibly difficult and incredibly powerful.
A good product, shaped by existing, future and previous users, and attracting new and returning users, is the goal for most businesses. But how do you go about achieving this? There can be no user without the product, but similarly, a product without users is arguably not a product, but an idea. One of the challenges I look forward to looking into in more detail will be to balance development of a product for future users, while ensuring that the feedback we get (and should get more of) from existing, or even former, users, help us shape the product we deliver today. We are lucky to already have both a product and users, but there are still many new products to deliver, and hopefully countless new users to deliver to - now for the challenge of understanding how to best do both.
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