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The Problem with Feedback

theatlantic.com

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Re: The Problem with Feedback

#21

Post by gonehome »

exclusiv wrote: post #20
gonehome wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Uber's feedback is the most frustrating because I can't rate in the only instances that I'd care to. - Driver calls and asks where I'm going then cancels ride - Driver drives up to me and asks where I'm going then cancels ride - Driver drives around aimlessly for 40min trying to get me to cancel and then cancels ride - Driver for Uber eats picks up food, steals it, then cancels ride In all of these instances the canc…

I've seen this quite often too! In my experience it happened more with Lyft and when I hailed a ride from the airport. I live pretty close to the airport (6-20 mins) so the sneaky drivers that see the fare will call me and confirm my destination. I confirm and then they just sit in their waiting spot indefinitely, hoping I cancel. Understanding their strategy, I walk down to the lower level with the app still open an…

I think Uber will cancel it for you if you leave the pick up zone so that doesn't work.

In those instances I've put my phone down and waited them out, but Uber still charged me (even though they're not supposed to). I was able to get them to reverse the $5 fee after some arguing, but was still unable to negatively rate the driver.

Re: The Problem with Feedback

#22

Post by flukus »

kaycebasques wrote: post #14
a13n wrote: post #6

I've been working on a startup in the user feedback space [1] full-time for the past 3.5 years, and love to see the topic of user feedback on Hacker News. Uber doesn't want your feedback because they care about your ideas/opinions. They want it because it's critical to their business. Put yourself in their shoes. They have 75 million users and 3 million drivers. A critical part of growth is retention: not bleeding th…

> love to see the topic of user feedback on Hacker News I'm also very interested in the topic, but in a slightly different domain. I'm on a mission to get "was this page helpful?" feedback widgets on all technical documentation across the web. Recently I just helped the Kubernetes folks [1] add it to their docs site. One of my high-level goals is to get the docs community to aggregate all of this data in order to ben…

I've noticed MS seem to use this to improve their developer documentation, a few pages I've rated poorly have been improved over the years. Annoyingly the same company has "would you like to do a survey" popups all over their other sites a few seconds after you load the page, at least let me read the content first so I can give half informed feedback.

Re: The Problem with Feedback

#23

Post by kaycebasques »

flukus wrote: post #22
kaycebasques wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> love to see the topic of user feedback on Hacker News I'm also very interested in the topic, but in a slightly different domain. I'm on a mission to get "was this page helpful?" feedback widgets on all technical documentation across the web. Recently I just helped the Kubernetes folks [1] add it to their docs site. One of my high-level goals is to get the docs community to aggregate all of this data in order to ben…

I've noticed MS seem to use this to improve their developer documentation, a few pages I've rated poorly have been improved over the years. Annoyingly the same company has "would you like to do a survey" popups all over their other sites a few seconds after you load the page, at least let me read the content first so I can give half informed feedback.

Yes, as a general PSA for the HN community, if you see a "was this page helpful?" widget on a developer doc, the team probably really does use that data in order to triage what docs need updating. So if you don't usually interact with those widgets, you might consider trying it. In particularly, if you rate a doc as unhelpful, and they give you a chance to provide freeform feedback, that is usually the most helpful information. Otherwise we have to guess at why a doc is getting a bad rating.

Re: The Problem with Feedback

#24

Post by iambateman »

Whenever I ask for feedback with friends, I say “on a scale of 1-7” which has the effect of being both a tad off-putting and rather memorable.

Assuming I care how they respond, there are a few benefits: - people are conditioned to rate at the extremities with a 10-point scale, whereas they tend to use the whole spectrum more when the scale is reduced to seven points. - most people don’t realize that “1-10” has no true middle number. On the other hand, 4/7 is perfectly “in the middle”. - if you believe psychologists, the average persons working memory is “7, +/-2” items. In my opinion, the brain seems to treat the “2” and “3” responses on a 10-point scale as roughly indistinguishable. There is similar haziness between “6” and “7”. The average person seems more capable of making distinctions across seven points.

Anyway, when you’re asking for feedback (and not on a first date), consider the seven-point scale!

Re: The Problem with Feedback

#25

Post by maroonblazer »

orev wrote: post #12

One issue I have is when feedback is clearly being collected with intent to manipulate, like with a cable company. They ask you to specifically rate the individual person, and you know that the person sitting in a call center all day might lose their job because of a bad rating. You might give a good rating even if you had bad service (or at least you’ll give a 5 instead of a 3). Then the company turns around and adv…

>and you know that the person sitting in a call center all day might lose their job because of a bad rating.

It's more likely they'd lose their job if they consistently receive bad ratings, from several different customers. And they should.

Given how much it costs to bring on new employees it's more likely that one bad review results in a consultation, additional training, etc.

Re: The Problem with Feedback

#26

Post by taeric »

stuartaxelowen wrote: post #16
taeric wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"back test data to outcomes" sounds scarily like p-hacking. That is, it seems highly likely you will still not find anything actually meaningful. You are just guaranteeing that you will be able to find something. This is especially true if you have retention numbers, already. Why bother asking if I was happy with a purchase, if I never buy again anyway. Note that I am sympathetic. There is every chance that I will bu…

Not so - the business is looking for real ROI, and thus will not be satisfied with topics that are "in the noise". Also, you create the measurement that establishes a problem before you apply the treatment (create new feature X or fix bug Y), and then verify after treatment that the desired affect was achieved.

If you are scanning historic data looking for correlations, you will almost certainly fall for some of the same traps that are common in p hacking.

Now, can you mitigate some by carefully doing an experiment again? Certainly. But you should also not constrain experiments to only things to have been measuring already.

Re: The Problem with Feedback

#27

Post by Wowfunhappy »

gumby wrote: post #10

This is why Netflix eliminated the star ratings -- it was too hard to figure out the degree of difference inherent in four vs 5 stars, plus it was a manual step. And to the author: kybernetes (κυβερνήτης) is the steersman of a boat, not a governor.

If you want a counterexample though, Goodreads seems to work really well with a five star rating system. Goodreads reviewers in particular seem to take the precise number of stars quite seriously, and many reviews include a line like "I really wish I could give this book 2.5 stars, but GoodReads won't let me, so I had to round up/down."

I've wondered before if this says something about heavy book readers as a population, since the five star rating system doesn't seem to work that well anywhere else outside of professional critical reviews.

Re: The Problem with Feedback

#28

Post by cma »

a13n wrote: post #6

I've been working on a startup in the user feedback space [1] full-time for the past 3.5 years, and love to see the topic of user feedback on Hacker News. Uber doesn't want your feedback because they care about your ideas/opinions. They want it because it's critical to their business. Put yourself in their shoes. They have 75 million users and 3 million drivers. A critical part of growth is retention: not bleeding th…

Maybe there are safeguards, but it seems like this lets Uber racially discriminate by proxy.

Re: The Problem with Feedback

#29

Post by robocat »

Some places want you to rate the employee (e.g. 1 to 5 stars at touchpad at checkout, or at toilet exit at airport in some countries).

Just about every time I want to rate the employee as a 5, and the company (or management?) at a low rating because the business has obviously been the one to screw up, not the employee.

Asking to rate an employee is a sign to me that the company service is poor.

Re: The Problem with Feedback

#30

Post by rcw4256 »

maroonblazer wrote: post #25
orev wrote: post #12

One issue I have is when feedback is clearly being collected with intent to manipulate, like with a cable company. They ask you to specifically rate the individual person, and you know that the person sitting in a call center all day might lose their job because of a bad rating. You might give a good rating even if you had bad service (or at least you’ll give a 5 instead of a 3). Then the company turns around and adv…

>and you know that the person sitting in a call center all day might lose their job because of a bad rating. It's more likely they'd lose their job if they consistently receive bad ratings, from several different customers. And they should. Given how much it costs to bring on new employees it's more likely that one bad review results in a consultation, additional training, etc.

> And they should.

Until we have UBI, or a functioning safety net that universally guarantees shelter and food, this is false.

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