Frustrating Experiences<\/h2>\n
The majority of the feedback Sarah and I come up with is inspired by a frustrating product experience. An app is missing a useful feature, doesn\u2019t work as expected, or has an unnecessarily high friction UX flow. As product creators, our brains are wired to think about how we\u2019d make this experience better.<\/p>\n
Therefore the first part of our survey aimed to learn whether others experience this frustration and if so, how often. We also wanted to dig into what people typically do when it happens.<\/p>\n
- \n
- 88% of respondents get frustrated when products don\u2019t work properly or are missing a useful feature.<\/li>\n
- 56% experience this frustration at least weekly, 75% at least monthly.<\/li>\n
- 63% of respondents who get frustrated feel motivated to do something about it.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
So a big chunk of people share our regular frustration and motivation to do something about it. What do people typically do when they have a frustrating experience?<\/p>\n
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<\/div>\nHalf of frustrated respondents typically do nothing about their frustrations. What\u2019s really interesting is that of the respondents who said they typically do nothing, 45% of them also said they\u00a0are motivated<\/strong>\u00a0to do something. So you\u2019ve got a big chunk of respondents who do get frustrated, are motivated to do something about it, and then do nothing.<\/p>\n
We are not surprised by this because this is exactly how we feel. We rarely submit feedback because we have huge doubts about whether it\u2019ll ever be seen by somebody who actually works on the product. While a lot of people do reach out, there\u2019s definitely a huge room for improvement.<\/p>\n
Ideas to\u00a0Improve<\/h2>\n
The next section focuses on feedback. Do people have feedback? Do people give it to companies? How is their experience giving feedback?<\/p>\n
- \n
- 90% of respondents have ideas for how the products they use could be improved.<\/li>\n
- 61% of respondents who do have ideas\u00a0rarely or never<\/strong>\u00a0reach out to companies.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
So people generally do have ideas but don\u2019t often reach out. How is the experience of giving feedback?<\/p>\n
\nRespondents generally\u00a0disagree<\/strong>\u00a0or at best\u00a0feel mixed<\/strong>\u00a0about companies handling their feedback well. Responses were largely negative and showed significant room for improvement.<\/p>\n
To me, this explains why so many people choose not to reach out to companies\u2026 because giving feedback typically feels like writing into a vacuum. You usually don\u2019t even know if anybody saw it, much less if it had any real impact on the product\u2019s roadmap. Why take the time to submit feedback if you aren\u2019t confident whether it will even be seen?<\/p>\n
Community<\/h2>\n
Feedback is usually a one-on-one conversation between the user and the company. You email, write a review, or tweet at them and they (sometimes) respond. You rarely get to see how many other users agree with your feedback or what feedback others have for the products you use.<\/p>\n
The next section aims to understand whether people benefit from community when giving feedback.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n
- \n
- 82% of respondents are curious about what others think about their feedback.<\/li>\n
- 76% are interested in the feedback others have about the products they use.<\/li>\n
- 80% would be willing to write feedback publicly if great feedback were rewarded.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
It\u2019s tough to say how much value people would get out of a community but you can conclude that many people are at least somewhat curious about the feedback others have and what others think about their own feedback.<\/p>\n
The Motivation Behind Giving Feedback<\/h2>\n
We predicted that many people would report having feedback, but would not give it because giving feedback is currently a very discouraging experience. This next section digs into what type of rewards would motivate people to give more feedback.<\/p>\n
<\/div>\nIt\u2019s interesting that the company responding quickly and transparently is more motivating than straight up giving people money. Alongside the fact that most respondents don\u2019t feel like companies offer transparency or respond quickly, it\u2019s no wonder people don\u2019t give feedback very often\u2026 the most motivating rewards are not the norm.<\/p>\n
Many large companies have a bug bounty program that rewards white hat security researchers with money and public mentions for identifying vulnerabilities. Why doesn\u2019t great product feedback get similar treatment? It can have a similarly large impact on a company\u2019s business.<\/p>\n
Takeaways<\/h2>\n
Overall I feel like other people are feeling the same pain points we are.<\/p>\n
- \n
- Despite products working pretty well, many people still get frustrated on a regular basis and have ideas for how to make apps better.<\/li>\n
- People rarely do anything with these ideas because giving feedback currently feels like writing into a vacuum, you usually get a discouraging generic response and it\u2019s unclear whether your feedback is valued or will have any impact on the product roadmap.<\/li>\n
- There are many things companies could do better to make giving feedback a better experience and to solve the frustrations people are feeling on a regular basis. They aren\u2019t really doing them. These things include responding quickly and transparently.<\/li>\n
- People desire transparency and to be involved in the product development process.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
We have some ideas on how to drastically improve the user feedback experience, both on the giving and the receiving side. These results were pretty encouraging that we\u2019re on the right track. We\u2019ll be sure to share more about what we\u2019re building soon!<\/p>\n
Thanks<\/h2>\n
Thank you for reading to the end of this post and caring about user feedback. If you submitted a response to our survey then thanks for that! We really do appreciate you taking the time.
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