How to get users to talk to you | Hacker News Reader

How to get users to talk to you

tella.tv

63 points9ranty24 comments

How not to get users to talk to you: popup surveys.

"How are you liking [the app]?" popups always get me to click on the negative option, regardless of my actual feelings.

Why? Because I want it to go away as soon as possible, and the negative option seems to do that more often. I don't want to continue the survey or get directed to the app store. Leave me alone.

Once I did that, cause the survey was sooo naggy. Then the sales rep for the app called me two days later asking me to change it because it reflects on their sales performance too and their manager wanted to know why.

So naturally, I asked to speak to that manager to explain how App review and Employee review are different. Then informed them how intelligent I thought their method was. Then cancelled the service (insurance)

I've heard that some apps forward the positive reviewers to the app store rating page, and the negative reviewers get redirected back to the app.

I have definitely seen this happen in apps. If you're less than ecstatic with the application, they direct you to some black-holed "We'd love to hear your feedback!" form. If you love it, they want your review in the app store because ratings are important for search and discovery.

Dating apps are often pretty aggressive this particular dark pattern.

I find this to be standard practice in nearly every mobile game nowadays. Since it's allowed by the app store guidelines, any app that doesn't do this is effectively being punished with a lower rating compared to ones that do. I wouldn't mind if Apple and Google prohibited this in their app store guidelines but it seems they currently are fine with it.

I’ve seen that happen too, very often. Usually the negative answer got me redirected to the app’s “internal” feedback page.

So now, when given just two choices, I pick the positive one, get redirected to the App Store, and then write an App Store review with actual feedback.

Game apps also pop these up when the user is on a winning streak, but never when they have just lost.

To be fair end users are the sort to write bug reports in a review system

I will give an app negative reviews for this practice.

I‘ve been thinking about doing this and making "GO AWAY" an obvious option seems essential for data integrity.

I have a Chrome extension, and last year we added an uninstall survey, which opens in a new tab after the user uninstalls the extension.

The completion rate is an insanely high 20%. It took me a while to figure out why we were getting such a high response rate. Eventually I saw that some people were complaining about the survey being mandatory, even though obviously it is not (you can just close the browser tab…).

I think this is because at the top of the Google Form, it says something “ * Required “ in red text at the top. Instead of being interpreted as “an asterisk means that the question is mandatory”, some people were interpreting it as “you are required to fill out this survey”.

Just make it easy for people to leave feedback and don't worry about trying to trick users into talking to you. Better yet, listen to what users are saying about you to each other. People spend countless hours on social media talking about companies and their products or posting about common issues and errors they encouter. Seems like a really good place to start.

It’s interesting that HN readers seem to have such a blind spot about user research.

When you make your first design hire, just make sure to get someone who understands ux and user research.

They’ll understand this stuff in a much deeper way than this article. Most importantly they’ll know how to analyse and action the data they collect.

Just have a good support team. And actually listen to them.

I just put my email discretely in the about section of my website, asking people to reach out if they have feedback. I get a few emails a week from people with ideas and opinions.

Turns out that works pretty well.

Sinple. Provide a low effort option that rewards the user for their time.

> "We paid for people's McDonalds in return for testing our app" -Matthieu Rouif, Cofounder, Photoroom

Has anybody else tried anything like this? Does it actually work? This had never occurred to me, and I'm interested in hearing from anybody who's tried it before. It seems like a low cost way to get some eyes and opinions.

Tangentially, also, does the opinion/result show any deviation pre-meal vs post-meal? Would love to see a paper on this, as weird as that sounds.

What has worked for me in the past is to buy a bunch of $5 Starbucks gift cards and sit there and offer people a free coffee in return for feedback on my app.

Another successful experiment was renting an ice cream truck and place it in front of a college and offer free ice cream for downloads.

It is a standard marketing research tool and has been for many years

I've been paid for a questionnaire on a new beer over 40 years ago and another more general one.

For small amounts, the "lore" is that people response especially well to food. That is, more people will fill out a survey for a Snicker's Bar than if offered the equivalent amount of cash (e.g., $2).

Yeah cause I normally won't buy a Snickers it's not a normal thought except when it's in front of my face. I assume that's the case for most everybody.

Food is the universal primal urge.

I think you'd only get feedback from people who eat at McDonald's.

I’m a huge fan of this framework, and also Tella.

Great product and thank you for providing the highest quality video + screen recording solution out there!

Reply on news.ycombinator.com