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I once spent a week working on a fairly complex feature for a product that the users were demanding almost daily updates on. I delivered it and, by coincidence

I once spent a week working on a fairly complex feature for a product that the users were demanding almost daily updates on. I delivered it and, by coincidence, happened to be where the users were a couple of weeks later and I stopped by to say hello and saw that the user who had been asking for the feature every day was still using the product the "old way". I asked why and he didn't seem to follow what I meant, so I reached over and showed him the feature that he had been demanding I add and he said, "oh, wow, that's awesome, that's going to be such a huge timesaver for us!"

DrammBA 5y ago
How subtle was the update message letting the users know about the new feature?
- garmaine 5y ago
  Yeah sounds like the lesson here is that nobody reads the update messages.
  - Semiapies 5y ago
    Couldn't have anything to do with how app update screens share the exact ergonomics that subscribe-to-the-newsletter nags and other ad popups have.
  - csydas 5y ago
    If quantum scientists thought the slit experiment was exciting, they should study IT user preferences and be amazed how depending on the mode of communication/observation, customers will both scrutinize every letter you write while simultaneously not reading it at all, will know every wrong pixel of your UI but not know where the button for "Thing" (labeled "Thing") is, and how anything you make is somehow the best worst average thing they've ever seen. If you're ever user facing it's a harsh but quick lesson that you can't really count on any users to follow any real pattern. Different persons latch onto different things, with adamant proponents and opponents of everything with a huge swatch of grey shades in-between. At a certain point you just need to decide when the "grey" is no longer grey for you on a particular subject and start to optimize for the part that cares while checking why the grey part isn't as interested. A lot of conversations with clients I have are with those in the grey territory, where they don't quite know what they want but they know they want it. Often times, they're more looking for a reference architecture and something to compare their current processes/workflows to, and this usually is pretty simple to work with. Those that are proponents of a feature N are typically vocal and picky, but the feedback tends to be pretty good and the guidance is clear on how they envision it, since there's a clear workflow on their side a lot of times that they want to optimize. Opponents of feature N typically bring out the edge cases and demand a solution, and are equally, if not more vocal than the proponents. It's really a tricky thing, and it's never really clear which is going to be "best" for users/the dev team.
    - beckingz 5y ago
      This comment made my day. Users not knowing what they want but knowing that they want it is a useful phrase.
    - markrages 5y ago
      It is a special case of Morningstar's law, you can't tell people anything. http://habitatchronicles.com/2004/04/you-cant-tell-people-anything/ http://habitatchronicles.com/2004/04/you-cant-tell-people-an...
- Aeolun 5y ago
  I mean, they stopped demanding the feature every day. Clearly they were aware that something changed.
  - megablast 5y ago
    Not at all.
  - Spooky23 5y ago
    The PM or whatever nag got the answer he wanted, and was able to check the box. Nobody was yelling at anyone to actually use it.
  - pavon 5y ago
    I've had something similar happen to me, and quickly learned not to assume that your customer POC will effectively relay information to the end users in their organization. They were pinging us constantly about a new feature because it was on their list of things to ask about. Once we told them it was done, they crossed it off their list and we never heard about it again until months later discovered by a chance interaction that none of the product users in the organization even knew we had added the feature.
olivierlacan 5y ago
This is why changelogs and release notes are not optional or tucked away in a dark corner. And users who request features need to be notified (actively, specifically) that something they requested or a bug they hit was resolved or addressed. I know, that's a lot of work. But what's the point of fixing things if you never tell someone it's fixed.
- jamesfinlayson 5y ago
  We've sent release notes our for a while but no one ever read them. Now we do showcases of the feature so people have no choice but to see what new features are coming.
- notatoad 5y ago
  changelogs and release notes don't get read. unless you're sending personal emails to the users who requested the feature, the experience in the essay here is the only way: make it automatic or turned on by default. and if it's not good enough to be automatic or enabled by default, then keep iterating until it is.
  - TheOtherHobbes 5y ago
    Changelogs are for developers, not users. They're a bad way to communicate specifics because they're literally a long list of changes, most of which are boring/irrelevant to most people. If you're releasing new features you need more ceremony. Maybe an email with targeted specifics, or at least a section on your website which highlights big important new features.
- rkagerer 5y ago
  That's great advice, but it's untrue that nobody reads changelogs. I read them religiously for software I'm passionate about as a user, and when I solo'd a product for a decade I was regularly surprised how familiar some of my customers were with mine (most often when they had dedicated IT resources or were similarly small boutique outfits themselves). I've also managed large, custom enterprise projects where subject matter experts on the other end relied on them (in addition to other channels of communication). What drives me nuts is how some companies decided to water them down. e.g. Windows Update's long list of "security related update" where you have to google KB's to find out what they are, and another company that just always puts in "various fixes and improvements".
jsemrau 5y ago
The wonders of digital transformation. One of my biggest insights here was that digital transformation is not only the technical upgrade or simplicity of implementation but rather the cultural implementation i.e., process re-development and re-training.
- snowwrestler 5y ago
  The main things getting transformed in “digital transformation” are the people.
quickthrower2 5y ago
You did the customer success role.
buu700 5y ago
To clarify, was he not aware that the new feature had already been released? Or did he think the "old way" was the new feature (and that he'd simply been blocked before), thus suggesting that the urgency of his ticket was unnecessary?
- commandlinefan 5y ago
  Well, I definitely told them that the feature they had asked for had been finished.

DrammBA 5y ago

How subtle was the update message letting the users know about the new feature?

garmaine 5y ago
Yeah sounds like the lesson here is that nobody reads the update messages.
- Semiapies 5y ago
  Couldn't have anything to do with how app update screens share the exact ergonomics that subscribe-to-the-newsletter nags and other ad popups have.
- csydas 5y ago
  If quantum scientists thought the slit experiment was exciting, they should study IT user preferences and be amazed how depending on the mode of communication/observation, customers will both scrutinize every letter you write while simultaneously not reading it at all, will know every wrong pixel of your UI but not know where the button for "Thing" (labeled "Thing") is, and how anything you make is somehow the best worst average thing they've ever seen. If you're ever user facing it's a harsh but quick lesson that you can't really count on any users to follow any real pattern. Different persons latch onto different things, with adamant proponents and opponents of everything with a huge swatch of grey shades in-between. At a certain point you just need to decide when the "grey" is no longer grey for you on a particular subject and start to optimize for the part that cares while checking why the grey part isn't as interested. A lot of conversations with clients I have are with those in the grey territory, where they don't quite know what they want but they know they want it. Often times, they're more looking for a reference architecture and something to compare their current processes/workflows to, and this usually is pretty simple to work with. Those that are proponents of a feature N are typically vocal and picky, but the feedback tends to be pretty good and the guidance is clear on how they envision it, since there's a clear workflow on their side a lot of times that they want to optimize. Opponents of feature N typically bring out the edge cases and demand a solution, and are equally, if not more vocal than the proponents. It's really a tricky thing, and it's never really clear which is going to be "best" for users/the dev team.
  - beckingz 5y ago
    This comment made my day. Users not knowing what they want but knowing that they want it is a useful phrase.
  - markrages 5y ago
    It is a special case of Morningstar's law, you can't tell people anything. http://habitatchronicles.com/2004/04/you-cant-tell-people-anything/ http://habitatchronicles.com/2004/04/you-cant-tell-people-an...
Aeolun 5y ago
I mean, they stopped demanding the feature every day. Clearly they were aware that something changed.
- megablast 5y ago
  Not at all.
- Spooky23 5y ago
  The PM or whatever nag got the answer he wanted, and was able to check the box. Nobody was yelling at anyone to actually use it.
- pavon 5y ago
  I've had something similar happen to me, and quickly learned not to assume that your customer POC will effectively relay information to the end users in their organization. They were pinging us constantly about a new feature because it was on their list of things to ask about. Once we told them it was done, they crossed it off their list and we never heard about it again until months later discovered by a chance interaction that none of the product users in the organization even knew we had added the feature.

olivierlacan 5y ago

This is why changelogs and release notes are not optional or tucked away in a dark corner. And users who request features need to be notified (actively, specifically) that something they requested or a bug they hit was resolved or addressed. I know, that's a lot of work. But what's the point of fixing things if you never tell someone it's fixed.

jamesfinlayson 5y ago
We've sent release notes our for a while but no one ever read them. Now we do showcases of the feature so people have no choice but to see what new features are coming.
notatoad 5y ago
changelogs and release notes don't get read. unless you're sending personal emails to the users who requested the feature, the experience in the essay here is the only way: make it automatic or turned on by default. and if it's not good enough to be automatic or enabled by default, then keep iterating until it is.
- TheOtherHobbes 5y ago
  Changelogs are for developers, not users. They're a bad way to communicate specifics because they're literally a long list of changes, most of which are boring/irrelevant to most people. If you're releasing new features you need more ceremony. Maybe an email with targeted specifics, or at least a section on your website which highlights big important new features.
rkagerer 5y ago
That's great advice, but it's untrue that nobody reads changelogs. I read them religiously for software I'm passionate about as a user, and when I solo'd a product for a decade I was regularly surprised how familiar some of my customers were with mine (most often when they had dedicated IT resources or were similarly small boutique outfits themselves). I've also managed large, custom enterprise projects where subject matter experts on the other end relied on them (in addition to other channels of communication). What drives me nuts is how some companies decided to water them down. e.g. Windows Update's long list of "security related update" where you have to google KB's to find out what they are, and another company that just always puts in "various fixes and improvements".

jsemrau 5y ago

The wonders of digital transformation. One of my biggest insights here was that digital transformation is not only the technical upgrade or simplicity of implementation but rather the cultural implementation i.e., process re-development and re-training.

snowwrestler 5y ago
The main things getting transformed in “digital transformation” are the people.

quickthrower2 5y ago

You did the customer success role.

buu700 5y ago

To clarify, was he not aware that the new feature had already been released? Or did he think the "old way" was the new feature (and that he'd simply been blocked before), thus suggesting that the urgency of his ticket was unnecessary?

commandlinefan 5y ago
Well, I definitely told them that the feature they had asked for had been finished.