Thread

Isn’t that what they taught you in typewriting class? Not that I’d know, of course.

I’ve got a feature request 😉

It’s so confusing when, in a response, people use a poster’s actual name when their screen name is something else. There are probably only a handful of people on the boards who know any one person’s real name if it isn’t their screen name - so suddenly there are these new names in posts and responses to people who aren’t involved in the conversation.  It can get very flabbergasting at times and can make understanding the thread very difficult.

Other than that I’d have to add a +1 as well 😊

It’s Randy when they disagree, PXLated the rest of the time. I prefer PXLated or Px 😊

It’s Randy when they disagree, PXLated the rest of the time. I prefer PXLated or Px 😊

I didn’t know that Ran…er…Px, I’ll keep your preference in mind for the future.

It’s kind of funny. I’ve used PXLated online since the mid 80s so when I see my real name it’s somewhat shocking. It’s a “are they talking to me” moment. 😊

Actually, while this is an interesting and - from the perspective of the developer - great post, I might slightly disagree with some basic foundation.

Sure: Feature requests made by customers might sometimes come from some sort of frustration. And they may be written in that mood, not very well expressed, not well thought, not perfectly argued, not respecting the “bigger picture” that EllisLab might have, but that this one customer is not able to see (at the moment?). However, as a consultant I always try to show my clients the value of any customer feedback, even if it is a frustrating experience for the company in the first run. There’s someone expressing his thoughts about a problem or a situation, spending his time, giving a company valuable input and the result of a creative process. For free! S/he could go away frustrated without expressing any of that. Could writing in his own blog or in some other forums about the experience and feelings. But no: Doing so for example in the FR forum shows respect for the company and the product.

Setting expectations on how customers should express that feedback and how they best should argue to get a chance to be heard is often hurdling that value.

Everyone posting a feature request shows mutual interest in the development of EE. S/he might not be a developer, might not be able to explain things as you’d like it. Might not even be aware or interested in how often you might have already heard the topic at that moment. S/he is expressing a personal opinion. S/he spend money on the company, buying and recommending stuff from EllisLab. Giving the foundation for the developers to have a job. These people pay your bills. Being forced to formulate a feature request in a way that is “appropriate” in the sense of the developer/company will ultimately lead to lesser feedback from the community and therefore lesser input from customers perhaps sometimes not 100% happy with a solution. But they wanted to give EllisLab a chance to know about. Often, FRs are as well meant to add value to the product. Free input - not being paid for, not needed to collect in stupid and costly customer opinion polls. Real, live feedback.

The “+1 doesn’t count, its not a democratic process” argument is frustrating for someone that runs into a problem or wish, finds a FR already made ... and wants to express his suport.He doe not want to hear: “Funny. Really think we value your opinion? We’ve heard so much and more! Give us something new, else you don’t count.” And its not helpful either if developers step on FRs stating: “With some creativity, thats already possibility - others are doing so.” - without any link to a solution. Don’t just look at it from a developer’s point of view, but the customer’s point of view as well.

Therefore, in my honest feeling, it is the responsibility of a company receiving thus customer input to value and discuss the feedback appropriate, not the responsibility of the customer to formulate appropriate. The customer does not get anything from “donating” his input to a company. Thats the Web 2.0 dilemma: E.g. hotels giving an unsatisfactory user experience or tech companies delivering products that don’t meet expectations find themselves discussed in forums outside their reach if they don’t listen to the feedback customers are giving. Would you really appreciate if the hotel would hand out a form to make a complaint better structured, understandable and lesser sound like a personal assault?

EllisLab is a company listening very well to customers, even so it is a “virtual” company. Thats a great plus and the foundation for a great community. The feature request forum is more or less the only forum that is bound to the customer experience, good or bad, where no immediate solution is expected from the poster. So, keep in mind the situation in which many customers are when formulating feature requests. Don’t expect, but read between lines. Or, as stated above somehow: Do not read feature requests with the developers eye of view, but with the customer service rep eye. The FR is not suitable for the developer without some filtering and processing. Perhaps, hire someone for that job.

Just my $.02 from the customer satisfaction point of view 😊

.Markus

I would like to address a few points here.  Please bear in mind that some of this is from the customer’s point of view - I was an ExpressionEngine user before I ever helped a single person.  In fact, I received help from Px as I was learning.

Part of the reason that I, personally, love ExpressionEngine and EllisLab stems from when I first found out about EE, there was constant developer input and really visible updates that showed to me, as a customer, that the company was really investing in this software.

Part of that observation was community members asking for things - and, amazingly enough, getting them!

Now, we’ve grown - and guess what?  Look at the Change Log, and look at our Feature Request forum.  I read every single feature request and it constantly impresses me how easily I can match Feature Requests to new ... features!

Even requests with no +1s in it.  We value everyone’s feedback - we really do.  The proof is right there, in the Change Log, and it’s also right there, in the EE 2.0 preview.  We listen and we act - and it’s not just listening to the forum, It’s extrapolations from technical support posts, questions, brainstorming, and other input.

Px - as far as defensive goes - I’m defensive about ExpressionEngine, and that’s been seen on these forums a few times.  Guess what - not a line of my code is in the program.  All too often people that say a feature is too hard to use haven’t even tried that feature - even though, in some cases, it’s simply a matter of adding a parameter and trying it out.

Markus, again, all our customers have to do is look at the Change Log to see that we listen to their feedback.

Discussing how to have a positive dialogue, and to make us see how something would help them - I really don’t believe that limits the conversation.  In fact, it opens it up, because just saying, “I want blah” could mean 50 million things depending on how blah works.  If the customer reads this post by Derek, then tells us a story about how a feature would help them - not only do we see a great argument about the merits of the feature, but we also understand where that user is coming from and how the implementation of that feature may be important.  Usually any feature can be implemented in one of several ways - and a story can certainly help with that.

As far as the +1 - we already know that the feature is desired, and the number of +1s doesn’t effect if that is included in the program.  As far as further dialogue - would you really prefer devs spend time in the forums, rather than actually developing? As a customer, I sure wouldn’t.  I want the devs in code-land, bringing those features into the program itself.

As far as hiring someone else to go through that forum - one thing that I’ve always loved about EllisLab is that the devs are part of the community. The most knowledge-able about the software are right there, evaluating what the customers want.  You really want a filter for that?  Putting on my customer hat again - I sure don’t.  I’ve made feature requests too, and watching the devs go through that request from all the angles is a humbling experience - I don’t want anyone short of that level of analysis in a filtering position.

That’s just my take on it - again, this is mostly from the point of view of a customer.  Yes, now I work for EllisLab, and wouldn’t change a thing - but much of this stems from where it all began.

Lisa brings up an excellent point that I don’t touch on in the post - the dev team are not the only people involved in considering feature request / problem solving.  Our other staff members are highly talented and have their own strengths and view of the software that is different from someone who is in the code every day.  We take advantage of that.

Markus, this post is not a set of rules that users must conform to in order to be relevant, it’s a recommendation for improving communication, and a bit of transparency on good, not the only ways to get our attention.  And I don’t think these points would differ much if the go-to person was in sales/marketing.  As Lisa points out, they’d still want a good story about a problem, and still be key in identifying the difference between and individual need and a community need.

“With some creativity, thats already possibility - others are doing so.” - without any link to a solution. Don’t just look at it from a developer’s point of view, but the customer’s point of view as well.

That’s precisely what we do, and there are even times where we will freely whip up a plugin or extension for a single user to meet their needs immediately, something a sales/marketing person would not be able to do.

I think if you go through the features that have been incorporated, many were written from a seat of venting frustration, or even brief and uninteresting, cascading with +1’s.  We hold no prejudice, but it’s a simple fact that in any company <-> client interaction, some methods of communication are more effective than others, on both sides of the table.

Px - as far as defensive goes - I’m defensive about ExpressionEngine, and that’s been seen on these forums a few times.  Guess what - not a line of my code is in the program.

Even though I used the term developers, my real point is someone with less emotional involvement. In a small company that is hard because everyone is involved emotionally. Being in design, I know the emotional pain when someone doesn’t like what you’ve done. Have learned to step bach and look at it from their point of view. Hard to do at times.

ll too often people that say a feature is too hard to use haven’t even tried that feature

Yep, see that quite often. I don’t know how you get around people not taking any initiative on their own.

customers have to do is look at the Change Log to see that we listen to their feedback

Often times hard to relate that to actual feature requests though. Don’t get me wrong, I think EL/EE is very responsive. Even though I have a couple of pet peeve requests that have gotten nowhere 😊

Discussing how to have a positive dialogue, and to make us see how something would help them - I really don’t believe that limits the conversation

No, and a story is good. My point was that if people don’t, maybe a more proactive approach would help. A simple “tell us why you need this and how you’d use it” added to the post may trigger a real dialog.

As far as further dialogue - would you really prefer devs spend time in the forums, rather than actually developing

No, unless only a dev can answer/solve the issue and I would assume you would alert them. That was another one of my points, let business/marketing do the Feature Request, not necessarily support either.

one thing that I’ve always loved about EllisLab is that the devs are part of the community

Me too. And they could pop in when alerted by other staff if there’s something they can add or need clarification.

some methods of communication are more effective than others, on both sides of the table.

Yep. It would be wonderful if all customers would take the story telling route when it comes to Feature Requests. If they don’t though, probe.

Indiscriminate carping is a waste and we all hate fanboys (even fanboys hate fanboys, although I hear they love fangirls, although no one has spotted one in the wild).

Not to derail the topic, but when I woke up this morning, my fiancée was wearing an ExpressionEngine t-shirt. It was sexy. 😛

I agree with points on both sides here. Everyone has their own personal FRs and EllisLabs has their own roadmap, whether or not that is explicitly known even to them at any given point in time (maybe it’s more a ‘general direction’) 😉

The one thing I’ve never really understood though are the arguments against +1 type posts. It seems to me that both sides benefit from knowing how much interest a FR generates.  As a customer, it is very much in my best interest to let a company know that I want something. I feel that if there is an FR that I really need or want I should most definitely speak up, and if I don’t have much time or if I don’t have anything more to really add other than a +1, it still makes me feel like my voice is heard, and that I’ve done my part in being a part of a (community focused product.

From the dev side, what you are getting from a +1 is another data point. Add enough of those together and you see a trend - a lot of people seem to want X so it might make sense to take a closer look at that functionality if we haven’t already, and if we have and it’s not on the radar maybe we should re-evaluate our priorities because there are people asking for it. What harm comes from 100 +1s?  Would it be better to get 100 stories of how it would help the product or the person if those stories are very similar? Seems like that would be more of a waste of time than a gauge of interest.

In the end EE is driven by the customer. If it doesn’t do what they need or want they will go somewhere else - just like with any for-profit company that sells anything. Hearing an FR with a thousand +1s seems quite a bit more enlightening to me than hearing a thousand individual posts with no other follow-up.

Just my .02 😊

Not to derail the topic, but when I woke up this morning, my fiancée was wearing an ExpressionEngine t-shirt. It was sexy. 😛

I somehow doubt you would be able to derail this conversation… To wit: You’re the first to even mention my post!

I think it’s a sign of the passion and professionalism of EE and the majority of the users that this conversation could even take place. Please God, don’t stop!

:coolhmm:

Not to derail the topic, but when I woke up this morning, my fiancée was wearing an ExpressionEngine t-shirt. It was sexy. 😛

I somehow doubt you would be able to derail this conversation… To wit: You’re the first to even mention my post!

I think it’s a sign of the passion and professionalism of EE and the majority of the users that this conversation could even take place. Please God, don’t stop!

:coolhmm:

Definitely. Here’s the thing, for me. While ExpressionEngine is a great platform (and 2.0 will be better still, based on the previews), I would be less likely to bother/plunk down the cash for a license if the community and the support weren’t there. I had a perfectly good custom solution in place before I switched to EE. It was less flexible than EE, but it was purpose-built and did exactly what I needed.

The problem was, I had to maintain it. Bug fixes? Me. New features? Me.

I’m a writer who happens to also be a decent hand at programming and design, but I’m happiest when I’m writing. Knowing that I have EllisLab behind me is invaluable. The fact is, if I need help, I can get directly in touch with a developer rather than having to navigate some minefield of marketoid drones and hope my plea makes it to the ivory tower (or in the case of most companies, down to the dungeons)... That’s beyond important, it’s essential. It’s similar to why I chose Apple computers. Sure, I can build a Windows box for a bit cheaper, but when it breaks, I have to fix it. My computer is a tool that allows me to do what I actually want to do, without fiddling. My website should be the same… Oh, I can fiddle if I want, (and I do, God help me), but it’s not necessary.

I appreciate EL’s approachability and openness at least as much as the power and elegance of the software. Thanks, everyone.

marketoid drones

Oh oh - Leslie, you gonna take that 😉
Heeee Heeee Heeee

marketoid drones

Oh oh - Leslie, you gonna take that 😉
Heeee Heeee Heeee

Hey, don’t get me into a fight with Leslie! His last name sounds like a martial art, I’m only named after the guy who used to play Dracula. 😛