@kcador as someone who leads a tech consultancy firm, I feel you here. Feedback that’s actually merely hate and not constructive isn’t great to receive, but more importantly, it’s really almost impossible to address.
However, I do find merit in people saying the tone (and then especially yours) is missing the mark for us. These things will contribute to people being unkind because their frustration is fuelled. I just finished reading 💬 New Trakt Feedback and it must be said that I understand why people feel unheard. Your last post is Nov 5th ( 💬 New Trakt Feedback - #232 by kcador ) and since there have been 200 more posts. Are a lot of those posts actionable? Maybe, maybe not. But the silence and the tone of the “big posts” is not helping here. In general, I do not think trying to innovate is an issue. However a lot of the feedback is constructive and real, and so are the worries.
A new post that is supposed to bust myths is only necessary because people (including myself) feel that there is a lack of clear communication. Yes, people are in general really bad with change. In fact, I was part of a Facebook group that was basically a support group for micro-changes. That’s all of us on the spectrum that have a hard time if a button changes a colour, let alone a design completely changes everything. So yeah, there’s always going to be “bring back the old thing” feedback. That said…
Responding to someone’s well-written feedback with: “We are building this from the ground up” or “More platforms were taking into account building this” or “Our statistics show a lot of growth [paraphrasing] therefore this change is welcomed” doesn’t just dismiss the time and effort someone spend into trying to voice their opinion and struggle, but dismisses it as a “why don’t you go away and try to enter one of your body parts into one of your orifices”.
Is that harsh to say? Maybe, but reading particularly your responses in that thread made me pretty sad and defeated.
Finally: I don’t think the design is all bad. It does feel half-assed and not researched. It’s not accessible (which is a problem for myself) and things are hard to find. The UX is far from even tolerable, and this seems, if anything, mostly designed for large mobile phones. If that’s what’s intended I think people will be open to hearing that. But the continuation of “no it’s great, it’s going to be great, watch us” isn’t helping anyone.
If this were to become the only option, and it doesn’t get better, just like other longmembers, I will revoke my membership. Will you cry about it? Probably not. But telling us that you do care about us feels… not aligned with your actions.