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Design a Journey for Better Product Feedbacks

Sometimes, people reached out, ask me to try and give feedback for their new website or app. I bet many of you experienced that too.

The thing is, when looking at a new website, I don’t know what to do, or what feedback do they need. I’d try to give feedback on how it looks, the content, and find typos. Which is not enough.

(I hesitate to invite people with no interest at all to try the product, to filter out unqualified data. I had some pretty weird experience)

Create a Testing Journey Instead

When you need specific feedback, you should design a “journey”. A guide leads users to go through and try all necessary features.

For example: sign up -> activate account -> create x -> publish y -> share z.
Along with that, ask them about the experience: is it easy to do/understand, any unexpected bugs, any funny buttons, anything expected but not there, and so on.

A while ago, a friend asked me to try and give feedback on his new website. He sent me a spreadsheet, 1-column with specific tasks to do, the next column for me to answer yes/no or my experience.

With the spreadsheet, I knew what to do and was able to give specific feedback
Try it next time you need feedback.

  1. 2

    Yeah, this is a challenge from both sides of the equation.

    As you know from experience, it's possible to be abstract and give feedback on the known things, but the real value is in the specifics of the journey itself.

    I'm in that strange place at the moment with the product I'm working on, the Under Cloud — I've been using some version of it for some time, but it's not since 2016 that I've had to pivot from a market of one (me), and begin the long process of building the application out for actual people other than myself.

    1. 2

      Hey Wayne, Under Cloud looks like Notion for people who don't like Notion. I think it's a great take. Wish you all the best building Under Cloud.

  2. 2

    Thanks for sharing!

    It's a very valid point - being very specific about the feedback you want will be more valuable than just asking for feedback in "general". Will definitely give it a try!

    1. 2

      That's true, feedback without going through a journey might bring surprise sometimes. But often, it not so valuable

  3. 2

    What a good idea. Will implement it when possible, sure thing.

    1. 1

      Cool Michael.

      You've been building WickedTemplates with a community-driven style. Getting feedback like this would be well suited. Let me (and others) know how it goes :D

  4. 2

    Thanks for the tips. I asked for my product feedbacks 3 times. As you said, most of feedbacks were about design or content.

    I'll give it a try next time

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