51–60 of 226 posts
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…
And that is why companies use telemetry. As privacy advocate I still let telemetry to be collected as long as it is transparent. And I can filter it if there is something too disturbing.
I had really simple feedback form in my Android app that was just text area and submit button. Then some ashole tester from Google put @ in it and suddenly I'm collecting PII. It was easier to just remove the feedback form.
Nature takes the path of least resistance. In my experience, especially people. Make it easy people will use it, make it difficult and they won't. It's the reason apple became apple, even though I don't think the iPhone is intuitive today.
It doesn't have to be difficult. It just has to be not easy.
The other method I used is to have audit logs, identify when there are errors in certain steps.
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.
I've worked with people who uttered this phrase many times. You really should put this on your CV because it's an incredibly helpful indicator of character trait.
The difficulty in reporting a bug comes from the friction required to filter the "page doesn't work" with no further explanation reports, or the "my neighbour is a spy for the government and I have proof" reports (real types of reports for a browser company, for example, which surely exist for other places users think that "is" the internet like Facebook). I agree that reporting bugs can be hard, but the amount of sp…
With all due respect, That is the price you pay for your users doing _free_ software testing for you! We are on the “listen to your users” mecca and you’re complaining that listening to your users is hard and you wish a machine could help you with it.
In comparison to _paid_ software testing, which doesn't change the point at all: if they were paid to find bugs, they wouldn't be paid for useless and unactionable reports.
>you’re complaining that listening to your users is hard
Sometimes - and I'd wager most of the time - they are, yes, unless your product solely attracts technically competent and advanced users that can attempt to understand/reason about what is causing the issue.