Dealing with User Feedback the Right Way

Feedback can be an incredibly useful tool when deciding which new features to implement in a major update, but only if used correctly. And it’s very easy to use it incorrectly.

Early last year, I’d wanted a diary app with a specific set of features. After failing to find one, I identified the problems I wanted to solve and began developing my own app. Months later, it was finally ready for release. User feedback was new to me at this time, but is something that my inbox and I have become well accustomed to in the fourteen months since.

I initially responded to my feedback incorrectly. My first step, after fixing reported bugs, was to go through the feedback and create a tally to show which features had been requested the most. These features were the ones I was going to implement, as surely that’s what would make my users happy. I was wrong, and this was the wrong way to deal with the feedback I’d received.

Up to that point, I’d been a problem solver; I’d identified problems and developed an app with features that would solve them. And now, here I was, implementing my user’s home-brewed features.

When a user sends feedback, they may or may not tell you their problem, but will always tell you their proposed solution to the problem — often a feature request. Ignore it.

You’re the software developer. Your goal is to solve their problem, not build their solution.

If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses. — Henry Ford

Your users’ feedback is really important. Hearing what their problems are can be immensely useful to the iteration process. Combining your knowledge and experience with their feedback, you can ensure a focus on developing the right features to solve their problems.