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Show HN: Most users won't report bugs unless you make it stupidly easy

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Re: Show HN: Most users won't report bugs unless you make it stupidly easy

#11

Post by boricj »

There's the other side of the coin of reporting bugs besides initial friction: if the user feels like the bug reports end up in a black hole, then they will disincentivized from doing so.

What happens after the user files a bug from their point of view? Is there a follow-up, or is it like throwing a message in a bottle?

Re: Show HN: Most users won't report bugs unless you make it stupidly easy

#13

Post by gjsman-1000 »

graypegg wrote: post #5

I love the UI concept. Being able to point at a broken thing rather than try to uniquely describe the position/state/path to a broken thing is smart! Hooooever, "bug" could be a bit ambiguous to a lot of people. Looks like in a real deployment, you have a little tooltip that says "Spotted a bug? Drag me there!". That makes sense to developers and the like... but those are also the sorts of people most likely to write…

When I took a look quickly, it also shows the "Spotted a bug? Drag me there!" every time the page loads - which could quickly get overwhelming, and make the user wonder why the developer is so certain that they will run into a bug. (Why do developers not make "report a bug" obvious? Because just seeing it implies there are enough bugs that a link is necessary.)

I also have no idea how well this works on mobile - and seeing that the Pro plan doesn't remove attribution seems like a mistake.

Re: Show HN: Most users won't report bugs unless you make it stupidly easy

#16

Post by Supermancho »

pxtail wrote: post #7

I won't report bugs in paid software/services because it's not my job, I'm not paid for it, I'm user of the service, not free workforce so they can reduce amount of QA staff or skip it completely. Give me a discount and then maybe , just maybe I'll think twice about reporting something. Bugs renders your soft unusable? Fine, there is plenty of competition out there who will do it right.

A clickable link with a form (partially pre-filled) and a big banner that says if the bug is verified I get 10-25% off something AND a followup email (reiterating the offer) + tracking link, would motivate most people I know.

Re: Show HN: Most users won't report bugs unless you make it stupidly easy

#17

Post by happyopossum »

pxtail wrote: post #7

I won't report bugs in paid software/services because it's not my job, I'm not paid for it, I'm user of the service, not free workforce so they can reduce amount of QA staff or skip it completely. Give me a discount and then maybe , just maybe I'll think twice about reporting something. Bugs renders your soft unusable? Fine, there is plenty of competition out there who will do it right.

So you:

A) only pay for perfection and

B) experience zero friction or cost in moving services?

Re: Show HN: Most users won't report bugs unless you make it stupidly easy

#18

Post by kccqzy »

I_dream_of_Geni wrote: post #10

You write that "reporting bugs is usually a terrible experience". I find bugs ALL THE TIME, and yet, when I even try to find a way to contact ANYONE, let alone a developer, they leave no door open at all. No method, no form, no contact name, no nothing. I (along with many, I presume), actually want those companies to excel. I WANT to let them know what to fix. But, they just don't want to hear about it. Really sad I…

In my experience it's because the companies have not hired any persons whose job is to triage bug reports. People do find bugs all the time, and making it super frictionless to report bugs will result in a deluge of reports. Some reports will be outright spam, some could be mistaking a feature for a bug, some could be duplicates. Someone needs to do the triage and try to reproduce before the issue is forwarded to developers. Few companies have the role of Quality Test Engineer (QTE) to do this job; most don't so they have no means to triage the bug reports.

The only exception is indie apps I pay for on the App Store. There is usually only one or perhaps two people behind it, so by definition that person is SWE, QTE, PM and several jobs rolled into one. And this is unsustainable unless the app is paid.

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