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This is why client & server side telemetry is so valuable. People on this forum like to get all up in arms about it, but having it makes for a much higher qual
by dalyons 7y ago
This is why client & server side telemetry is so valuable.
People on this forum like to get all up in arms about it, but having it makes for a much higher quality end user experience, as you can see all the problems people run into. Not just errors, but bad ux flows, That cause people to bail etc. It’s really been invaluable for all the products I’ve worked on in the last 10 years.
Because yeah, most people won’t tell you.
- userbinator 7y agoThat's because people here value their privacy far more.
- nitrogen 7y agoCompanies used to do this with focus groups and beta testers. Now they outsource the work to their customers, at a high privacy cost. If client-side telemetry is benign, then it should be fully removable for people who don't want it (Firefox good, Windows 10 bad, web session replay terrible).
- octorian 7y ago> Companies used to do this with focus groups and beta testers. Even with beta testing, you still run into serious bugs that are completely unknown until the code hits production. There's far more diversity in the runtime environment among non-enthusiast regular users than you'll ever encounter in dedicated test efforts.
- Nextgrid 7y agoI've used products with insane amounts of telemetry and the quality wasn't much better. I guess Windows 10 is the proof of that, as its quality has severely degraded from Windows 7 despite the increase in telemetry.
- Enginerrrd 7y agoSomehow I feel like it's almost intentional to drive the UX to a "search for everything" model.
- Nextgrid 7y agoIt's almost like telemetry encourages optimising for idiots because they are the majority of the userbase. The problem is by removing features they remove the opportunities for the non-tech-savvy people to learn and become power users, so it's a feedback loop.
- UweSchmidt 7y agoMore generally, it can lead to UI decisions made by clueless people misinterpreting the telemetry data, instead of opinionated leadership that decides how the classic google.com page or the iPhone should look like.
- gmueckl 7y agoWell, this os probably not a bad idea where unskilled users are concerned. This way, They don't have to learn domain vocabulary and arcane incantations to make a strangely shaped box do their bidding. I can totally understand where this is coming fron. However, that god awful search in Windows 10 is the exact opposite of this ideal. It seems to get worse and more inconsistent in every iteration. I hate it in particular when a web search result gets displayed instead of my locally installed app that I spelled out and when I absentmindedly hit enter before reading the small print in the result, a new Edge windiw greets me. It's not even my default browser. How's that for bugs?
- z3t4 7y agoContrary, not even HN users care if their web searches, sites they visit, and other programs they have installed, is shared. Either that or they didn't read the EULA and privacy policy of the tools they are using.
- Faark 7y agoMy problem is less the existence of telemetry (some negatives were already mentioned), but that this data is collected into gigantic silos describing the totality of my digital life and shared/sold. Going with a self-hosted solution instead of GA goes a long way to gain my acceptance.
- tjoff 7y agoIt is not. I was about to write "I hope someone doesn't think telemetry is the answer to this", thankfully it took quite a while - because it really isn't. The answer to this would simply be to test it on OS X. Or just state that OS X isn't supported - or just do nothing. All three are acceptable for a project like this. Telemetry is not.