What is the "User Insights" forum for ?

[+MartyBartfast]

The title of the User Insights forum says

Give feedback on specific topics, provided by the Product Team, to help inform future features.

 

It strikes me that the recent changes to the Email notifications, which caused such a firestorm of complaints across numerous forums, would have been the perfect topic to have been discussed on the User Insights forum; you would have been able to gather requirements and opinions before making any changes, and although it's unlikely you would have received a unanimous concensus at least you would have been able to avoid the furore that was unleashed following the ill-advised changes.

 

You went to the trouble of setting up that forum, and yet it's hardly been used, please consider using it more in future...

 

signed,

 

A. Wellwisher

[jholly]

The title of the User Insights forum says

Give feedback on specific topics, provided by the Product Team, to help inform future features.

 

It strikes me that the recent changes to the Email notifications, which caused such a firestorm of complaints across numerous forums, would have been the perfect topic to have been discussed on the User Insights forum; you would have been able to gather requirements and opinions before making any changes, and although it's unlikely you would have received a unanimous concensus at least you would have been able to avoid the furore that was unleashed following the ill-advised changes.

 

You went to the trouble of setting up that forum, and yet it's hardly been used, please consider using it more in future...

 

signed,

 

A. Wellwisher

 

You totally missed the point of the User Insight forum. It is a forum where GS proposes an idea and the users give praise and thanks for such a wonderful idea. It is not a forum where users give feedback on their thoughts on changes made without the users suggestion.

[Jayme H]

Thanks for the question, Mr. Wellwisher.

 

I'd be happy to give more insight into the new User Insights process. This is a brand new program which became a brand new role for me at HQ. I used to be on the Community Team and when I made the switch I moved over to the Product Team. The purpose of the User Insights process is to bring the community voice into the product development discussion to help guide the development process.

 

The forums are only one method we currently use to reach out to the community. Other methods include: surveys, in-depth interviews, product discussions with the community at events or in the HQ lobby with visitors, and in-person innovation games (eventually we'll play online too). We look for opinions from a wide swath of the community: experienced users, beginners, community volunteers, mobile only users, GPS only users, Basic Members, and Premium Members...worldwide.

 

If you don't see me posting to the User Insights forums, it means that I am doing in-person interviews, creating surveys, or finding other ways to engage with the community and ask for feedback. Right now I am knee deep in planning three User Insights sessions for the week leading up to Block Party, where we are inviting members of the community to share ideas with the Product Team. I haven't forgotten about the forums - in fact I miss hanging with you guys. I will be back to engage with everyone and grab your product specific feedback in the future. Until then, know that we read what you guys are saying in the forums, even if we aren't posting.

[+K13]

Should that read...."Until then, know that we read what you guys are saying in the forums, but we're going to ignore it and do what we want anyway."

 

RETURN PLAIN TEXT TO EMAILS, PLEASE!!! over 7 pages, MOSTLY about this very issue and the problems it causes to your customers.

[+Hynr]

The purpose of the User Insights process is to bring the community voice into the product development discussion to help guide the development process.

You then are obviously not aware that when you are the only one who can post there (I see "You cannot start a new topic") that you are actually only listening to yourself and hearing what you want to hear, but apparently have no interest in listening to what we might want to tell you. I interpreted it that way when you first set it up. I did think it was a good idea (certainly better than nothing) but wish you would have put it to use with the new "email notification bloating feature" and "let's save bandwidth by not e-mailing gpx files anymore".

[team tisri]

Thanks for the question, Mr. Wellwisher.

 

I'd be happy to give more insight into the new User Insights process. This is a brand new program which became a brand new role for me at HQ. I used to be on the Community Team and when I made the switch I moved over to the Product Team. The purpose of the User Insights process is to bring the community voice into the product development discussion to help guide the development process.

 

The forums are only one method we currently use to reach out to the community. Other methods include: surveys, in-depth interviews, product discussions with the community at events or in the HQ lobby with visitors, and in-person innovation games (eventually we'll play online too). We look for opinions from a wide swath of the community: experienced users, beginners, community volunteers, mobile only users, GPS only users, Basic Members, and Premium Members...worldwide.

 

If you don't see me posting to the User Insights forums, it means that I am doing in-person interviews, creating surveys, or finding other ways to engage with the community and ask for feedback. Right now I am knee deep in planning three User Insights sessions for the week leading up to Block Party, where we are inviting members of the community to share ideas with the Product Team. I haven't forgotten about the forums - in fact I miss hanging with you guys. I will be back to engage with everyone and grab your product specific feedback in the future. Until then, know that we read what you guys are saying in the forums, even if we aren't posting.

 

Honestly Jayme, when you say things like "we read what you guys are saying even if we aren't posting" it does sound very much like "we see what you're saying and we're not interested".

 

Take the threads (there are many) about the new HTML format that seems to have attracted almost universal criticism. Does anyone in Groundspeak care how many people are annoyed by a change thrust upon them without even the option to have the old style emails? From the deafening silence in the threads it's difficult to assume anything other than the corporate stance being "yes, we know many of you hate it, and we don't care".

 

This sort of thing really makes Groundspeak look like a bunch of amateurs. Changes come out with apparently no thought for how they might have a negative effect, then we get the pat comments thanking us for patience while you fix the latest thing you broke (e.g. when some genius decided to call Unknown caches Mystery caches and broke all sorts of stuff in the process, but apparently released it without any form of testing at all), and then all we get is more silence.

 

The appearance of simply not caring what your paying customers think is a major reason why I am no longer a paying customer. Looking at other people I know who geocache I noticed a lot of bright yellow icons have turned to the dull grey showing they have also let their memberships lapse. Frankly it's easy to see why once-keen geocachers are losing interest in the game. As the game deteriorates into a smartphone app to find soggy filmpots behind signs I might as well use the same smartphone to seek and scan a QR code on the front of the sign and not concern myself with whether I look suspicious, whether the bomb squad will be called, or whether a poisonous spider has taken up residence beside the cache.

[+NYPaddleCacher]

Thanks for the question, Mr. Wellwisher.

 

I'd be happy to give more insight into the new User Insights process. This is a brand new program which became a brand new role for me at HQ. I used to be on the Community Team and when I made the switch I moved over to the Product Team. The purpose of the User Insights process is to bring the community voice into the product development discussion to help guide the development process.

 

The forums are only one method we currently use to reach out to the community. Other methods include: surveys, in-depth interviews, product discussions with the community at events or in the HQ lobby with visitors, and in-person innovation games (eventually we'll play online too). We look for opinions from a wide swath of the community: experienced users, beginners, community volunteers, mobile only users, GPS only users, Basic Members, and Premium Members...worldwide.

 

If you don't see me posting to the User Insights forums, it means that I am doing in-person interviews, creating surveys, or finding other ways to engage with the community and ask for feedback. Right now I am knee deep in planning three User Insights sessions for the week leading up to Block Party, where we are inviting members of the community to share ideas with the Product Team. I haven't forgotten about the forums - in fact I miss hanging with you guys. I will be back to engage with everyone and grab your product specific feedback in the future. Until then, know that we read what you guys are saying in the forums, even if we aren't posting.

 

It seems to me you're spending time looking for new ways to engage with the community when there is a user forum right here full of people in the community trying to engage with Groundspeak. Before this section became the "website" forum it was the "Feature Suggestions" forum and there are probably dozens of topics from beginner and experienced users, users of mobile and/or GPS devices, basic and premium members from all over the world, all trying tell you what's not working, what can be improved, and features we'd like to see. Sometimes, we will see a post from a lackey, acknowledging the issue, stating that it has been prioritized, or "we're working on it", but we're not seeing a lot of results. Some of the feature suggestions that have been made, and are tagged as "being worked on" are well over two years old.