Do MS listen to all feedback

paulsalter · 06 Nov 2014

Reading various topics on this and it appears that MS only listen to what the majority of people want, all other feedback is ignored, does anyone know how true this is

If I use an example of the Charms Bar which I know the majority hate (figures below are just made up for examples)

Lets say 80% of people using the preview, sent feedback saying they like the new style with the 3 dots at the top left
The remaining 20% left feedback saying they wanted the Win 8 style Charms Bar

How would MS deal with this?
Would the 80% get what they want and the 20% just have to put up with it?
or
Would MS provide an option so both of these are happy?

The answers might only be known by MS themselves, but anyone have any thoughts on how feedback works and what it would take to make changes/give more options

Just something I was thinking about earlier this morning
Cheers

jimbo45 · 06 Nov 2014

Hi there

IMO this is the wrong method to get feedback from customers -- there will be 100,000's or more (could be millions) messages so who is going to trawl through that lot of info to collate users needs etc.

Ms would be far better off in appointing a few key developers to read Forums like this one and pass people's remarks on.

Not only is there far less information to handle the users of these Forums are far more likely to be knowlegable and will certainly come up with decent suggestions too.

Cheers
jimbo

davehc · 06 Nov 2014

I had one experience of this. I had a particular problem on an extension drive. Some of my files/program's there, were reported as "wrong path".and could not be found or run. This was one of my early feedbacks. I have not seen any reference to this, in any of the very few updates to date, but the problem has gone away. Could be coincidence.

paulsalter · 06 Nov 2014

Thanks for the comments

I am unsure how data from feedback app works, do MS read all of it and combine the same items, or do they just look at high voted requested and then decide whether to implement the change (they do say they are listening)

If 500 people voted as 'Me To' for the notification centre to be at the left next to the start button, 200 people voted 'Me To' for notification centre is perfect as it is

What would they do?

MS know what they want to do with 10 and I just have a feeling that they will only go with feedback that agrees with their direction (feature wise)

adamf · 06 Nov 2014

Another problem is their feedback gets hijacked by special interest groups. If you see here windows.uservoice.com the most requested feature for windows is a Persian calendar which while irritating if you live in Iran can hardly reflect the majority of global users.

caperjack · 06 Nov 2014

why would they change it if only 20% of the voters wanted it .

put yourself in there place ,lets say you owned a retail store ,with a 1000 customers every day ,and you had a suggestion box by the front door and every customer put in a suggestion for you to put a coffee shop at the entrance of the store , and 800 said no and 200 said yes ,would you put the coffee shop in ,,I know I would not

paulsalter · 06 Nov 2014

caperjack said:

why would they change it if only 20% of the voters wanted it .

put yourself in there place ,lets say you owned a retail store ,with a 1000 customers every day ,and you had a suggestion box by the front door and every customer put in a suggestion for you to put a coffee shop at the entrance of the store , and 800 said no and 200 said yes ,would you put the coffee shop in ,,I know I would not

I see your point, but your example is an ongoing cost, with windows once the feature is there it doesn't cost MS if someone uses it

If you had a restaurant and said to people should we offer free water
800 said they wouldn't want it, 200 said it would be a good option
should the 200 be denied water if they ask for it with a meal

If 800 don't want Charms Bar and 200 do, once this feature is added as an option, what extra cost is there?

Mystere · 06 Nov 2014

paulsalter said:

I see your point, but your example is an ongoing cost, with windows once the feature is there it doesn't cost MS if someone uses it

Actually, that's not true. Every feature in Windows has an associated maintenance cost. Once implemented, someone has to maintain it, and make sure it's updated for every release. This includes things like artwork (images, line art, layouts), translations (different languages), bug and security reviews and fixes, etc.. Every line of code in Windows costs something to keep in there.

paulsalter said:

Reading various topics on this and it appears that MS only listen to what the majority of people want, all other feedback is ignored, does anyone know how true this is

The answer to this is far more complicated. This is going to sound arrogant, or flippant. But users are often the worst people to take suggestions from. Certainly, they need to be listened to... but that feedback needs to be taken into account with the overall strategy of the product and direction of the company.

Obviously, Microsoft cannot satisfy everyone, since there are mutually exclusive opinions. They are also not going to listen to people that want things that go against their corporate direction and interests, although if enough customers revolt that can change the corporate direction and interests.

The reason I say users are often a poor source is several fold. First, they're self-selecting. You only get people responding who have an agenda. If you listen to the complainers, and make changes based only on that feedback, then suddenly you get a backlash of people that were just fine with the product but didn't give feedback. And those people are probably 100:1. This is what happens when Microsoft does things in a vacuum... for instance when they came out with the Visual Studio 2012 User Interface that people hated so much.

Users often don't fully understand the whole product either... they report things as bugs when they are just misunderstandings. They request features that are already in the product. They often assume their workflows are everyones workflows, and can't understand that a product often has to work for multiple audiences (and thus has compromises).

All in all feedback handling is something that ends up being what you get is what you get...

paulsalter · 06 Nov 2014

Mystere said:

paulsalter said:

I see your point, but your example is an ongoing cost, with windows once the feature is there it doesn't cost MS if someone uses it

Actually, that's not true. Every feature in Windows has an associated maintenance cost. Once implemented, someone has to maintain it, and make sure it's updated for every release. This includes things like artwork (images, line art, layouts), translations (different languages), bug and security reviews and fixes, etc.. Every line of code in Windows costs something to keep in there.

Thanks for correction

So the feedback is really just a pointless exercise, unless you want to see the changed features which MS have already mentioned

Mystere · 06 Nov 2014

paulsalter said:

Thanks for correction

So the feedback is really just a pointless exercise, unless you want to see the changed features which MS have already mentioned

No, it's not a pointless exercise. Microsoft does take feedback into account. And they do change their minds on things (start menu is a good example). Take any avenue you can get to supply your opinion to Microsoft. The data makes it into graphs that get seen by someone, but there's no guarantee that it will alter decisions.