Microsoft: Better Listen to Your Beta Testers
As a Microsoft beta tester, I'm forced to use the 1995'esque (lynx optimized) Beta Place and/or the halfhearted Connect sites to manage program acceptance and feedback. Dumb. Dumb ditty dumb ditty dumb-dumb-dumb. Nobody should be leaving ANY kind of constructive feedback in a newsgroup anymore, neither in a Web-based forum nor through a mildly-antequated NNTP hierarchy. Empower the community, don't just placate it. Here's the kicker: Microsoft already has a better product, and it's already using it – but only in a limited fashion. This is a call-to-arms for all Microsoft software beta testers on the planet: we must all start using “Ladybug” for all future beta software releases. Strongarm your contacts to steer directly into its headlights. As suggested by another annoyed supporter, Brandon Bloom [sic]:
A friend of mine whom just completed a Microsoft internship just extended me an invite to beta IE7 and Windows Vista. I installed IE7, but promptly performed a system restore because the Microsoft Connect web site is an embarrassment. It made it virtually impossible to submit feedback and I refuse to run IE7 (which is hideous) without providing feedback. Not only is connect.microsoft.com a poor rehash of the MSDN Product Feedback Center, but it forces you to use a stand alone newsgroup reader when Microsoft has access to a superb web based newsgroup reader on MSDN! Please go talk to these people and convince them to use this MSDN Product Feedback Center for IE7 and Longhorn bugs (and all other MS software for that matter). This site is significantly superior. Microsoft is wasting its precious mind power on re-inventing the wheel constantly.
His proposed solution? “Use MSDN Product Feedback Center for all Microsoft software, especially programs under heavy development such as IE7 and Vista.” I agree, entirely and completely. So, what say you, Vista and IE7 teams? Are you ready to manage your programs more effectively with a proven-useful Microsoft product? Allow me to provide more feedback on feedback…
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4 Comments
nwistheone
September 29th, 2005
at 6:34pm
i recently attended a Windows OneCare Live chat between beta testers and developers… and it was absolue chaos. i expected better as well.
Anonymous
September 30th, 2005
at 9:00am
I've used both Microsoft Connect and Beta Place for the Monad and Kahuna (Hotmail) betas, and I was also not impressed with either. I do continue to participate in the Kahuna beta, and MS Connect isn't *that* bad, but it definitely has some UX and bug issues (several times I had to re-enter my feedback because through some error it had been jettisoned into the ether). I wholeheartedly agree that all MS products should be using Ladybug. Even Microsoft has a hard time moving away from a platform they're used to, to something newer and better. I do know that my team has several products currently or soon to be using Ladybug for beta testing.
Anonymous
September 30th, 2005
at 11:40am
Hi Chris, I run a small in team in DevDiv that is responsible customer connection across the division. Our scope includes things like closing the customer feedback loop, aka using Ladybug/ProductFeedback/Connect to make our products better and customers feel more a part of the process and more satisfied with the outcome.
I'd love to understand your concerns about Connect better. On the IE7 issue, I happened to talk to an MVP last night who mentioned this and I pinged the Connect team about it a little while ago. I know that's going to get fixed pretty dang quickly.
It's actually dumb that we have two feedback systems, and we're in the process of getting to one that has the best attributes of both. Connect offers some things that PFC doesn't. PFC handles some things better. Instead of building/maintaining two, we need to move to one that works well. I expect that will happen over the next six months, but the key thing is that we don't cause a significant setback for the communities using either tool today. There's a very active work effort right now between the Ladybug team, my team and the Connect team to get us to a great feedback experience that we all feel good about.
Beyond just the tool, Soma has asked us to help the other groups in the company be successful and learn from the experience here in DevDiv. To that end I recently met with the Windows team and compared some statistics on thing like fix rates, duplicates, etc. across the two sets of customer feedback. While we care about the tool experience – there are things in PFC/Ladybug that have been there forever that just drive me nuts – in the end I think what matters most is whether we listen to, respond to, and act on the feedback. Teams like Windows are earlier in the process than we are and not doing quite as well yet. But they want to, and by taking advantage of our learnings (some positive, some negative) they will catch up quickly.
The company's intent is to provide an interface that makes the process easy (and not frustrating) for customers, to use this across most/all products (I qualify that only because I haven't spoken to all groups), and to ensure that the feedback is prioritized as high or higher than other considerations. You are completely right – we are not there yet. But there's a lot of working happening to get us there.
Mark Cliggett
Group Program Manager
DevDiv – Microsoft
Anonymous
September 30th, 2005
at 1:03pm
A P.S. from Mark Cliggett again:
I didn't leave any contact info. You can reach me via my (dormant) blog (http://blogs.msdn.com/markcli/default.aspx) or send mail to markcli_nospam@microsoft.com.