2 ms·

Writing up details and actions after an outage like this is a good practice for improving the perception of a service. The compliment to taking re-active action

Writing up details and actions after an outage like this is a good practice for improving the perception of a service. The compliment to taking re-active action like this (e.g. informing users and make underlying tech improvements) is to try show uptime in a passive way that the users register. My old boss - before I had a startup - would often use the analogy of the London Underground, which for a long time was perceived as a poor service, until they introduced regular status updates on all lines in each station. This made people register all the times that the service was working for them (and many others, by showing the status of all lines), so that when there was a problem they saw it in context as a small proportion compared to 'uptime'. Not sure how you could apply that in this example, but it might resonate with more 'infrastructure' like services like web hosts.

patio11 17y ago
I am sympathetic to the overall thrust of this, but posted on my blog (which vanishingly few customers read) rather than my main site for a reason. If your toaster can't toast, you don't want to hear why your toaster can't toast, you just want it to toast toast. This describes the relationship of almost of my users with their computers, the Internet, and Bingo Card Creator. While I want to apologize to users who got delayed from getting back to their lives because their toaster was on the fritz, I don't want to tell anybody else that toasters sometimes can't toast toast. It needlessly complicates their relationship with their toaster: they have no relationship with their toaster, and that is how they bloody like it.
- bendtheblock 17y ago
  Yes that's a good point - I think in most cases you're probably right and simplicity (e.g. attempting to not show irrelevant information) is more important than the telling them that their toaster is toasting.
conanite 17y ago
When I visited London and saw notices with "There is currently a Good Service on All Lines", my immediate reaction was "why is this news?" By announcing their successes it seemed to underscore their users' low expectations of the system.

patio11 17y ago

I am sympathetic to the overall thrust of this, but posted on my blog (which vanishingly few customers read) rather than my main site for a reason. If your toaster can't toast, you don't want to hear why your toaster can't toast, you just want it to toast toast. This describes the relationship of almost of my users with their computers, the Internet, and Bingo Card Creator. While I want to apologize to users who got delayed from getting back to their lives because their toaster was on the fritz, I don't want to tell anybody else that toasters sometimes can't toast toast. It needlessly complicates their relationship with their toaster: they have no relationship with their toaster, and that is how they bloody like it.

bendtheblock 17y ago
Yes that's a good point - I think in most cases you're probably right and simplicity (e.g. attempting to not show irrelevant information) is more important than the telling them that their toaster is toasting.

conanite 17y ago

When I visited London and saw notices with "There is currently a Good Service on All Lines", my immediate reaction was "why is this news?" By announcing their successes it seemed to underscore their users' low expectations of the system.