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Sure, but criticism comes in different flavors. “This software is difficult for me to use because of X” is a valid and fair take. “This software/development t

Sure, but criticism comes in different flavors. “This software is difficult for me to use because of X” is a valid and fair take. “This software/development team sucks” is uninformed criticism if someone doesn’t know the full context. For all I know, the developer may very well be aware of my situation, but there’s some reason that X must exist. I worked for a very large financial services company, and when I told people this, they would commonly bring up something to the tune of “your app/website sucks because of X!” And the response was very commonly: “we know, but we’re legally required to do this.” I also worked on film projects, and occasionally someone would catch some goof (e.g. continuity error) and say “I can’t believe you missed this!” My (internal) response would be: “I didn’t overlook this. I have seen this film hundreds of time in slow motion during editing. We just didn’t have the budget to correct it, and it drives me nuts every time I see it. I could point out 70 other minor errors that YOU missed.” It always reminded me how often we (myself included) mistake our own mental models and experiences for a comprehensive-enough understanding that we can pass judgement.

quanticle 5y ago
I think there's real value in hearing, "This sucks," even if there isn't a clear chain of reasoning backing it up. I've done a bit of gamedev, and I've found feedback of the form, "This isn't fun," or "This part feels boring," to be far more valuable than detailed analyses. Like you said, the user usually doesn't have the full context. So if a player comes to me with a detailed analysis about why a specific area of the game sucks, it's likely to be wrong. Or, even if it's not completely wrong, it's likely to miss second and third order effects that have impacts later on. So, for example, someone telling me that part of the game is not fun because a particular character or ability needs to do more damage, be easier to use, require fewer resources, etc, etc, is less valuable to me than someone telling me, "Hey this thing feels kinda useless." "This thing feels useless," is a valuable signal. The detailed analysis is basically noise because it misses the fact that addressing the problem in the most direct way might ruin the rest of the game.
louwrentius 5y ago
Sorry for not adding anything to the discussion but I really resonated with this comment, thanks!

quanticle 5y ago

I think there's real value in hearing, "This sucks," even if there isn't a clear chain of reasoning backing it up. I've done a bit of gamedev, and I've found feedback of the form, "This isn't fun," or "This part feels boring," to be far more valuable than detailed analyses. Like you said, the user usually doesn't have the full context. So if a player comes to me with a detailed analysis about why a specific area of the game sucks, it's likely to be wrong. Or, even if it's not completely wrong, it's likely to miss second and third order effects that have impacts later on. So, for example, someone telling me that part of the game is not fun because a particular character or ability needs to do more damage, be easier to use, require fewer resources, etc, etc, is less valuable to me than someone telling me, "Hey this thing feels kinda useless." "This thing feels useless," is a valuable signal. The detailed analysis is basically noise because it misses the fact that addressing the problem in the most direct way might ruin the rest of the game.

louwrentius 5y ago

Sorry for not adding anything to the discussion but I really resonated with this comment, thanks!