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Ask HN: Review my project - reportaproblem.at

25 points by akirk ↗ HN
So I built this project out of personal experience, when it happened to me that I accidentally broke a feature on my web site and nobody bothered to tell me.

I figured the reason for this is that users simply go away when something is not working, I do this myself. But what's the reason for that? It's quite cumbersome to notify the site owner: first you need to search for a contact or feedback link, and then you also need to describe what feature you're actually talking about.

So with reportaproblem you as a site owner receive a simple HTML snippet containing a "Report a problem" link that you attach next to all your important features on your web page.

When a user clicks such a link, inside the page a popover appears and you can quickly enter what's wrong without leaving the page.

I haven't (yet) put all that much effort into it, for example it probably needs a more decent navigation. I see it more like a proof of concept for now, also because I don't know whether or not it's a small and viable business idea at all.

In general, such links from reportaproblem.at are free, but I consider asking for a one-time fee to customize it (right now it's also free), and I also plan to provide additional features if it catches on.

I'm curious for your opinions. Thanks a lot!

http://www.reportaproblem.at/

22 comments

[ 7.4 ms ] story [ 64.5 ms ] thread
andreasklinger
I am sure many people will critized the fact that you have to place it by hand to each area and that its farely simple.

To be honest thats what i like about it. I like the simplicity.

Getsatisfaction and co completely miss the point and scare users off. It makes no sense to have a badge on the side. We use it in several projects. Its more a survey less a bug report channel. And the overhead of registering first keeps people out.

The benefit of the product is in two directions. First Users have a way to communicate. Second Users see that somebody would care if a problem arises.

I can imagine this product within smaller blogs/webshops and other smaller to middle-sized products.

The only problem i would see is that these pages then to be rather poorly implemented and it could easily happen that those errors break the plugin. But the user would have the same problem with all other implementations.

akirk
Thank you!

The JavaScript part of the link is only launched when the user clicks on it, so a bad JavaScript page shouldn't interfere with that. And even then there's an HTML fallback.

SHOwnsYou
Seems like a great idea if you can keep it to a very low monthly price with excellent reliability and usability.

I might consider changing the name... Just doesn't feel right.

I would initially think to remove "HTML Snippet" from your page, just because the people that are likely outsourcing their problem reporting to you may be confused by that.

I would also look at how Google sells the simplicity of adsense to users to get them understand they are putting Google's code into their website (or some alternatives to "HTML Snippet"

I would also probably never offer a one time payment for this service. After your first month's fixed costs the early "one time fee" adopters are riding it out until the end for free.

akirk
Actually I finally chose the name because the HTML fallback URL ends up being http://reportaproblem.at/yourservice

Could you elaborate on what you mean by removing the HTML snippet from my page? The problem ends up being reported to the e-mail address you enter when signing up. reportaproblem is just the delivery mechanism of feedback.

Thanks for your thoughts!

SHOwnsYou
I'm saying that people that understand what an "HTML Snippet" is and how to implement it are likely not your target market.
akirk
Well that's the question. I personally find it very appealing to just quickly add a link to a page and then have the benefit of getting problem reports, rather than having to implement that popover myself.
hariis
I think the commenter is referring to the terminology "HTML snippet" not the concept of it.
SHOwnsYou
Yes exactly. I'm sorry I was not more clear. The phrase "HTML Snippet" may turn some people away if they don't immediately understand it, and those that do understand it will often not be your target market.
andreasklinger
as a suggestion: i think its save to use the term plugin or widget nowdays?
roblund
I like the name. You might want to also grab the .com or .co if you can just to make it easier for people to find you.
photon_off
I was just thinking about if I would actually implement this. I think I might, but it'd have to be much more discrete than the red box. Maybe just a little cute bug icon, or something.

There is definitely something to all of these really simple feedback, poll, bug, and feature request services. I think you should follow through with this and see where it leads.

akirk
Well, the red boxes were just to highlight the links on the start page so that you don't miss out on what report a problem actually is about.

But you're right. I have simply removed them.

neuen
Now I've spent a few minutes playing around with it, I can say that I really like it - direct email is great.

While I like that you've given users the option to customize the feedback box (background, text colors) I'm still not the biggest fan of the styling for the box - I'd much prefer to have a centered box, more in the style of Fancybox.

joshuacc
This looks like a great way to get feedback when something is broken. I'll probably add it to one of my projects in the near future.
IgorPartola
You can probably do even better by including the HTTP referrer, the user agent string, etc. as well. Knowing the user's browser right away is huge. Cookies, could help, but if the user logs out and their session ID is gone, it kind of sucks. Providing a way to look up the user's ID if it's being used on a site where the user has logged in would be pretty awesome.
akirk
Everything there :) Let me quote from an e-mail I received earlier through one of the report a problem links on the front page:

  Browser: Firefox/3.6.8
  OS: Mac OS X 10.6
  Language: English
  URL: http://www.reportaproblem.at/
SabrinaDent
You really need to provide a visual example on the home page of what it is... ie what does it look like when implemented. As it is, I don't understand exactly what I'm signing up for (in a concrete way) when I fill out the box.
akirk
Well, just try out the Report a problem links right on the homepage. Maybe I should make such a report a problem box show up without a click at all?

I did that now. Better?

SabrinaDent
OK that's much more transparent, thank you.
roblund
I like it. The only thing I was seeing was because of the 'position:absolute;' rule in your CSS the dialog jumps out of the flow of my page. I'll leave it up on my page for a while so you can check it out, http://theredhoodie.com.
akirk
Thanks, I have fixed it.