Adam Perfect

General

Getting user feedback - don't make it hard!

I just uninstalled the DivX driver from my PC as it currently doesn't work very well on Vista (slow and pops up with auth requests the first time you open a DivX video). On uninstalling, it opened a form in my browser asking for a bit of feedback on why I was removing the software. This is good - it shows they might try and improve on whatever caused me to 'leave' and if I'm leaving due to minor niggles (yes in my case), I might now be inclined to check again in a few months to see if they've sorted it out. So far, so good. The first question had a number of radio buttons to choose from on why I uninstalled (bugs, just not liking it, etc.), but due to the wording none really fit, so I left them. Same with question 2 ('might I come back?' I don't want to bother answering that). So I just fill in the last bit - a big textarea for my comments. I point out the Vista problems and that when they're fixed I might reinstall. Submit. Error pop-up tells me I must complete question 1. I bet they lose a good percentage of feedback there, but I'm not in a hurry, so I tick an answer and submit again. Pop-up returns telling me I must complete question 2. Now given that the user is already presumably somewhere on the 'upset' scale, putting barriers in the way of them telling you why they're upset and leaving isn't good. If the textarea has been filled in, it's much more likely to give actual useful feedback than a multiple choice question so let it go and ignore the others. This is probably just one of those things that got overlooked, but if it was done right I bet they'd be getting much more useful feedback, or even some more useful feedback from people like me who just filled in the free text box with their actual opinion but then got irritated at the form validation and left (I did submit my feedback, but I'm a developer and know its potential use). PS: I'm not just picking on DivX, just that theirs is the website I most recently (5 minutes ago) hit this problem with. It was a great idea to ask for my feedback, they just failed slightly in letting me give it to them.

Written by Adam on

Adam is a Director of User Experience by day and photographer as time allows.

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