Ask HN: Do you find it challenging to talk to your users?
One of the problems I faced when I had my first users on [just-diary.com](http://just-diary.com) is that I didn’t have any way to talk to them. Like getting feedback on using the product, asking them questions about what they want from it, and sharing some tips on how to use some features.
Does anyone have the same problem? If yes, how did you solve it?
92 comments
[ 2.9 ms ] story [ 154 ms ] threadAlso, if no one replies to your request, that's a data point as well.
Talking with your customers lets you build relationships and brand loyalty which is valuable, but I'm also not sure if that outweighs the downsides.
But for your situation just create a survey with Google forms or something and send it out to everyone. If you don't have many customers yet take the time to personalise each one.
Since your product is a journal, maybe have a public forum/journal to build a community with as well?
He was super a cool customer and really helped me improve the product too but you need to have a lot of patience and genuinely love talking to them with a mutual interest in them and then you can interview them to your hearts content. Also don't expect to get any dev done while you're doing this :)
When I read the OP question I took "difficult to talk with users" as being about the content of discussion/feedback not the mechanisms for soliciting it, so I'll stick with that take....
I'd say, you need to know what you want.
You will definitely get extremes. I deal with feedback as a teacher, developer, author or musician, and many of the same things apply. Some will be straight, some over-nice, some funny and teasing, some will be rude and angry. But what you want is useful responses, regardless of emotional sentiment and how it's packaged.
How do you filter for that? Like the guidelines of HN it's good to take the most sincere interpretation possible and look for attempts to communicate nuggets of useful critique. Someone who knocks your work down can be great, not even because they're right, but because they do so in a useful way, maybe by making you think about something.
It's good to have a framework for identifying and interpreting things you're looking for. When I post on HN, because I am researching for a book, I have a kinda X-Keyscore selector set in mind - I'm looking for ethical/moral signals, nuggets that reveal underlying attitudes of hackers. But that could apply to any product or project and a set of information you're interested in seeking.
A research method that can help you with this is thematic analysis and sentiment analysis. You "code" responses and score them as to how much they tell you about pre-selected areas you;re trying to improve... installation, usability, cost, configuration, interoperability.... and so on. Then, if you're going to respond, get back to those users on those specific points for clarification.
I used to deal with and include all the tracking, analytics, logs, etc., but it's all just bloatware for me since it's relatively small apps. I don't require login or accounts and don't want to spam and make everything voluntary in the end, and not force it. It will take time, and the focus is on being as non-predatory as possible. I keep things slim and simple and people seem to like that. Making sure a user has a good experience with software that I write is always #1. All of these points collectively I feel is inviting for people to socialize their thoughts to me.
https://www.savio.io/blog/how-saas-companies-get-in-app-prod...
At my co we ask for feedback:
0. When someone books a demo (email)
1. When a user signs up (in-app and via email)
2. When a user converts from trial to paid (email)
3. When a user cancels (email)
We also:
1. Use Intercom and lots of feedback comes in there
2. Have several in-app callouts to vote on features on our voting board or contact support
3. Close the loop with customers when we ship a feature they asked for, and ask for feedback
We could definitely do a better job on the in-app feedback collection side.
I have a Calendly which people can book a 20 minute conversation with me about my project.
I've had at least 60 high value conversations now, with people all over the world.
I don't promote them heavily at the moment so I sometimes get just 0-2 a week, but in the past I've had days with 3 or 4.
I wrote about this pattern here: https://simonwillison.net/2021/Feb/19/office-hours/
Most people will delete it. But I don't find it dishonest because it's literally an offer to help and you can ask anything you like (I have always gotten replies as a consumer).
I'm assuming once this doesn't scale you can just do the same with support agents (no fake here, just put their names and emails) so the inbound is handled by different people with the same goal in mind.
You also get free bot protection with botpoison or the usual captcha. There are some false positives as usual, which is why I also have a Discord server running for the apps. But Formspark goes 99% of the way and it's incredibly cheap with a free option.
EDIT:
I see you're mostly looking for a way to reach your users instead of letting the users reach you. I feel that's not something most users want. I almost never like when I get an unsolicited email after I start using an app, and unsubscribe instantly.
It's better to provide good documentation (maybe a simple organized markdown page to start with), and one as clear as possible first page.
People will reach you when they need more info and you can update the website and documentation based on the feedback to minimize the repetitive interactions.
First surprising thing I learned is that users don't usually actually have the will to spend any amount of time giving feedback. But they will avoid admitting it. The second discouraging thing is that when you do get them to sit down and talk, you will find that they're really good at subverting and evading any sort of plan you might have had. And then finally, after you have managed to collect information, it can be extremely difficult to interpret the results and come back with clear insightful ideas for changes and improvements in the product.
To me, interviewing and talking to users is something between the role of an anthropologist and journalist. You sort of have to charm them enough for them to open up, but you also have to maintain scepticism about what they tell you. You have to be inquisitive. And on top of that you have to be able to set aside your own interpretations and thoughts so as not to tip the scales. It can be emotionally draining, especially when you have your own convictions.
I work with engineers and they hate talking to users. The process can be very vague and often feels fruitless to them. Engineers can be stubborn and hold on to their worldview because they strongly believe theirs is objective and there should only be right and wrong answers.
I don't know what it's like at a smaller or larger scale. I can imagine some things are easier, and some are harder. A large company may have real resources to spend on finding the answers which can bring more people to the table. A single-person operation might not have those resources but could be sympathetic enough to bring individuals to the table based on sympathy.
However, when you make discoveries and insights, those are things that can make or break your entire product. It's almost like panning for gold or fishing, you spend a lot of time searching and in doubt, and then you come across that one idea that really makes it all work. Anyways those are my thoughts. It's incredibly satisfying and I love it but I hate it.
I personnaly find this work very fulfilling, as it blends my social science expertise and my tech passion. And if anything, this thread and the answers are the living proof that the job will be needed for a while !
As a follow up: my intuition is that a UX Researcher would first enter as a UX Designer. Is this accurate in your experience, or are there paths for direct entry into UXR?
However, UXR is really a separate discipline and every larger company I know (>a few hundred employees) hires dedicated UXRs. Most UXRs have a natural interest in people. Often they come from PhD programs in psychology or sociology (easiest route). But I’ve seen plenty come from a bachelors program, or other “people” fields like sales and marketing. With your background I’m sure you could tell a compelling story about why you’re a fit for the role.
If I were you I’d try to learn as much about UXR methodologies from books or online, and then try to get a job doing UXR at a small company. No need to do UX Design first—that’s a separate skill set.
https://www.bentley.edu/centers/ux-education
Or something more academic:
https://www.bentley.edu/academics/graduate-programs/masters-...
https://www.hcii.cmu.edu/
To answer your specific question re: "career prospects/lifestyle of UXR"; I used to do that work full-time, and even founded a consulting business around that. FWIW, I also chaired one of the largest local chapters of the relevant ACM special interest group (SIGCHI). However, I don't work in that field anymore, by choice. And I'm somewhat pessimistic about it, even though I still think it is a critical discipline. My reasons for leaving are:
-- Smaller companies can only afford one person, so they typically hire someone with an art school background; and expect that person to also be able to do UX work well. They are really distinct (but slightly overlapping) skill sets, so it is hard to find one person who is competent at both! Especially on a small company salary...
-- Personal to me: I don't have that art-school background, so that puts me out of contention for a lot of jobs.
-- Most 'tech' companies, from giants like Apple, to small start-ups don't seem to value high-quality UX work any more. At least not as much, and as generally, as was expected in the dot-com years. More typically, nowadays, they seem more interested in visual appeal, and being 'on trend'.
-- I've also heard that UX is not really important because new users are 'digital natives'.
-- I can make a LOT more money, and find more jobs, slinging web front-end code (Vue/React/JS/TS/etc.), than I can doing UX work.
While I have a creative background (previous life as a Local 600 cameraman on features/commercials/music videos/etc, father was a design professor) - I am not an illustrator or designer by experience.
If I make a jump, I would aim for tech in some capacity (UX/UXR, Sales, PM are current focal points), but between now and June - I’m just gathering information.
But people are passionate about talking about their problems and that's where you should orient your discussions on. Don't ask about your product at all during PM interviews, simply try to understand the problems users are facing and figure out what ways your product is or is not addressing those problems.
The biggest mistake I see PMs make is coming in with an over optimism bias and assuming that your product must be top of mind for all users when the reality is that the most often scenario you discover from user interviews is that the problem you're trying to solve is of relatively minor importance to most people.
I've see it at Lays, P&G, Google, Mars and others.
It seems a great trick to get humans to cast off the current status quo.
Helps to know exactly what type of feedback you're looking for. Frame any ask as a way to help them [save time / money etc]. And come up with open-ended questions.
Some good templates here: https://giddy-amusement-c74.notion.site/Interview-customers-...
You see this come through in products all. The. Damn. Time.
Some PM, and probably one or more designers who were on their side, wanted an "experience". The user just wants to get in and out of your thing as fast as possible and in a way that requires minimal attention.
I just wanted to pay my fucking water bill. A barely-formatted HTML form with nothing else on the page would have been better than almost anything they might come up with. Anything but expert and extremely tasteful efforts to improve on that, will just make it worse. But no. The PM wanted an "experience".
And don't get me started on people in software who complain about users complaining about redesigns. Those users just wanted to do the three clicks they do every morning to do the one thing they do with your software, then forget about it again until tomorrow. You surprised them with a full screen "LOOK WHAT'S NEW" they didn't want and had to figure out how to get rid of, then made them waste some time playing "Where's Waldo" for the element they usually click, and maybe even made it so they couldn't figure out how to do that one thing at all. Of course they're not happy.
This is very important in my mind.
Frequently when people talk about mfing website or similar philosophies, you get response like "Well you can improve that in this very specific way". Yes. You can improve it. But think twice first, not everything is broken just because it hasn't been touched. And a lot is broken because it has.
Yeah you need to understand the whole process that the user is part of, and then design a better overall process.
You can't ask the customer to design the product for you, they don't have the overview it requires and they also don't have any incentives to help you with your job, unless you give them something for their time.
Product managers make their job way too easy for themselves by expecting the users to provide complete requirements for them.
You could never have done any user research that would show you that people wanted to have a phone without buttons, before the iphone came out.
In a nutshell, what we did was email users asking for a 30-45 minute remote interview in exchange for $50 gift card. We started the meetings letting the user know that there are no wrong answers, that it's quite informal and they can leave at any time. We then spent the first half of the interview finding out who the user is, what they do and how they use the product. The second half was spent uncovering pain-points and maybe even asking users to share their screen and show us.
We'd take notes during the interviews and then once we've done a few we'll collate the notes at which point the improvements to make to the product would become obvious.
People love to give feedback, and they especially to complain. If you have enough users they'll do it entirely on their own, creating forums and subreddits to discuss a particular program or service. Get your users talking to each other about your stuff and it's much much easier.
When I dismiss a plea for leaving feedback it's usually because I was bothered with the request while in the middle of a task I was trying to complete, I was asked to hand over personal information (like an email address) to some random 3rd party hired to collect the data, or it seemed like a scam (like "rate/review my product and get a free X!"
And I am doing that in a variety of school systems to get feedback.
I do find getting 30-60 minutes with a user or group of users extremely valuable. You've really got to try and dig into their use case and understand them. And tell them to stop telling you what they think other people might do and get them to focus on themselves. Everyone likes to tell me what other users might want, and then asking them, well, do you do this? "Nope, but other people might..."
But once you get through that, the rewards are fantastic. You can build some frameworks around your users and have a much better intuition of who would like what and how they would use it. Then reach back out and ask.
One other method I use is an ask for features button on the app. Once they ask for a feature, I ask if they are open to connecting over zoom so I can deeply understand their use case. And sometimes they get their feature built, and sometimes they get something much better.
I'm old (52), so while I did code initially in my career, I was tempted away ($$) into roles where the fact that I'm also good at written and spoken communication was part of the remit. Being able to communicate with users AND understand how software is actually written turns out to be a remunerative skill.
Like coding, though, it's not something just everyone can do well. Also like coding, you have to WANT to do it. If you're pushed into a role like this and you don't like it or don't want to do it, everyone will suffer -- you, the users, and the rest of the dev team. It's a recipe for sadness.
The best way to find out what a customer wants is to ask them.
Edit: the form is only 3 fields long and email is optional if you want a response.
People do also occasionally message me with feature requests or put them in the public room.
I will say though that the times I have directly asked groups of users what product or feature to build, I have mostly received crickets. Before I built the main product I practically begged a couple of Discord communities to tell me what they needed/wanted. It took awhile and I got a single response. I built that and then had everyone else in the community tell me how badly they had needed it.
I don't know what it is really but it can be like extracting teeth. But the sort of leaders may eventually give feedback.
I don’t understand the appeal of Discord for feedback. As a user I have to sign up, figure out your channel structure and rules and then publicly post with no context on whether what I am asking has been asked before (and there is no way I’ll spend time searching endless posts to see if it has).
It’s possibly the worst experience for a user that just wants to share some feedback and engage with the product creators in a somewhat private setting.
I'm on there because all of the different communities from developers to creators in this ecosystem are on there.
You are kind of implying that something like a forum or FAQ would be better. A forum would be nice but the search feature would end up making it about the same as searching a forum. But the thing is, 90% of the questions they ask are self-evident from the UI or explained in the Help section that is right on the form.
I think a lot of the people that message directly or in the chat are looking to interact with a live person as much as they are interested in the answers. They want to make sure there is someone available to help in case they run into a problem. And/or they feel like asking questions is going to be easier than having to search or read instructions that are in the web app already.
It's interesting I have no problem communicating with all of my users because my project is a live chat app.
But one thing I noticed is there are countless things people want, so much that it can become challenging to filter them down and choose which ones are valid or should have priority.
Another issue is the conversations can be dispersed, so really it makes me think having a dedicated feedback button is still the best option even in my case.
Especially when you’re B2C, small, and your users are small, build that personal relationship. Find your most passionate users, figure out where they hang out (Reddit? Twitter? Facebook? Discord) and try to start a community there.
This serves two purposes:
- Your passionate users will want to talk to you! They will have a particular power-user perspective, but much better than no feedback.
- Building an effective community that is excited about your product is fantastic for marketing. Word of mouth is the most effective kind of advertising.
If what you want is to have a lengthier conversation please remember time is money--remunerate the user for their time helping you.
This is, by the way, why I prefer having other developers as my first users.
My method has always been to be offer a few companies/users a free account. Assuming your product is something they really need, a free account in exchange for feedback is a win win for both sides.
Communicating with users (or future users) is not really an issue I've faced with either of my startups (metaverse for outdoor sports https://ayvri.com & neurotech/sleeptech https://soundmind.co).
I inherited Ayvri, but started SoundMind. The first thing is speaking to users, not something you do after. Who is your target user and where do you find them. I think if you are solving somebodies problem, or understand the problem you are solving it makes it easier to reach out and communicate with the users.
It's difficult to reach out to existing users with a "can you give feedback" without really understanding the problem you are solving for them specifically, or asking about a problem.
When working on Ayvri (then Doarama), we had a few paragliders who were really into the product. I'm not a paraglider (which always amazes that community) so I had no idea what they wanted. I looked at our most viewed 3D scenes, found out who made it, and reached out saying "hey, you're getting lots of views, and you clearly love the platform. I know nothing about paragliding and why you use our product, can you tell me about it, and how you use it and why?" Sure it's "feedback", but it's really about understanding what they are trying to accomplish and why they use the product. That is more important than getting "feedback" on what you've got. Understand the problem, and you may find solutions that the users don't know they need.
With SoundMind, before we really didn't knew what the product would be, I was communicating with people on reddit re: neurotech, sleep, biohackers, etc. From there, I've had people (including investors) hunt me down on linkedin or message me on via reddit (HN has also been a good source). I dove deep into understanding people's problem with sleep, and from there we've focused on two initial HIGHLY specific use cases that we can help them with. So once we know who THOSE users are, again, it's fairly easy to speak to them.