Contextual ideas and feedback for Internet sites
On two occasions yesterday I found myself wanting to offer feedback to the operator of the web site I was browsing. The feedback I wanted to offer was contextual — it was for a specific idea or feedback for a specific point on a specific page.
The first was at www.ventureloop.com, which I landed at after searching for career opportunities through a venture capital firm. VentureLoop is currently operating under a closed beta for Stanford, Harvard and MIT graduates. Ironically, the word “receive” was misspelled in their graphic as “recieve”. I wrote an email to them and they promptly responded by fixing the error. Maybe it would be nice if they took UCLA graduates! I wonder how many hundreds of others saw the same mistake but didn’t care to share that thought to a fellow entrepreneur’s site or just didn’t think it was easy enough to do it.
The second was at www.wamu.com, where I was reviewing some scheduled money transfers from my savings to checking where payments are made to credit cards. While I was reviewing the list I couldn’t recall what each transfer was for (e.g., MBNA Visa, Citi Mastercard, etc), but could only see the amounts. I desperately wanted to offer feedback to Wamu that they should offer the option of naming or noting your transfers for future reference, but there was no way I was going to send in a generic email through their form. I imagine that if others could see my feedback contextually and help build a consensus, would that give Wamu the appropriate intelligence to improve their site’s usability and/or errors?
I have read countless blogs where things are misspelled or grammar is a bit off (I’m guilty of that also). Some of these blogs are well known blogs, such as the CEO of Userplane, who repeatedly forgets to use “an” instead of “a” before a word that starts with a vowel. Mike Jones has great things to say and I’m excited about his new LA-based Web 2.0 group, but I’m sure if it was easy for others or me to point a simple error out, we would. I won’t argue that the principles of blogging encourage free-form and, I guess, free-grammar writing styles. Can misspellings reduce search and advertising relevance?
The concept around wikis and its editability (if that’s a word) by all members or even guests is intriguing in this sense. Members and guests can correct each other for the benefit of the entire group. I recall the early attempts at building discussion tools within the browser or web service, but I’m not aware of any new tools that allow visitors communicate with site owners with contextual feedback, not in the form of blog comments, but rather ideas, errors, and specific feedback.
Is there an AJAX plugin for site owners that can solicit real-time and contextual feedback? If there is I’d love to check it out.
August 9th, 2007 at 1:20 pm
Interesting thoughts. Back in the day it was as easy as emailing the “webmaster”, who’s email you could easily find at the bottom of every page. Clearly this not the case for many corporate sites today. Could this issue be solved by simply placing an email address that went directly to the webmaster or marketing director? Does everything really need to be in an AJAX or wiki format these days?
By the way how was my grammar and spelling?
August 9th, 2007 at 1:45 pm
I don’t believe everything needs to be AJAX or collaborative editing (wikis), but as Eric Schmidt affirms, AJAX is a major force behind Web 2.0. It offers functionality that can allow me to contextually describe an idea and problem, like pointing to a right-clicking at a website and offering feedback. Having to describe an idea and issue and reference a specific context or place on a site is much more difficult than having that information collected for me when I send the feedback, including my current browsing history.
I think usability of Internet services can be significantly improved by this type of interaction.
August 17th, 2007 at 12:28 pm
AJAX or not but concept of interacting with webmaster or marketing manager is really needed. Many corporations use http://www.opinionlab.com to get feed back from readers. I am sure you all know about it and seen it on Dell and other websites. I must add it’s a paid service.
As per spelling mistakes, Grammar or typos most of HTML editors and blogging sites come with some kind of spell checkers. What will be great is if an internet browser comes with same tools. I mostly overlook these kinds of mistakes and I do them a lot. But if technology allows us to improve our language Why not take advantage of it.