How Google takes feedback(google.com)
google.com
How Google takes feedback
http://www.google.com/tools/feedback/intl/en/learnmore.html
42 comments
Every one who is interested in that should take a look at the great html2canvas library:
https://github.com/niklasvh/html2canvas
https://github.com/niklasvh/html2canvas
Indeed very cool. Usabilla offers a same form of feedback: http://usabilla.com/products#usabilla_live (see also button on the right side of the page).
How it works:
1. You create a widget and add two lines of code to your site. 2. Visitors click the feedback button and can select highlight any part of the page to comment on. 3. Usabilla creates a screenshot (server-side) and shows feedback in a simple dashboard.
Disclaimer: I'm founder of Usabilla.
How it works:
1. You create a widget and add two lines of code to your site. 2. Visitors click the feedback button and can select highlight any part of the page to comment on. 3. Usabilla creates a screenshot (server-side) and shows feedback in a simple dashboard.
Disclaimer: I'm founder of Usabilla.
I find it annoying how you have to restart the tool for each individual element. Especially as you have to go through the How Does It Work screen every time. I think skipping the How Does It Work screen on subsequent pieces of feedback would be better.
How do you guys take a screenshot server-side for sites that require a login? Or does this only work for publicly accessible pages?
Capturing sites that require a login works the same as other pages. We use the HTML output to capture a server-side screenshot.
but what if client had a crappy old browser but you rendered with modern browser, which will be rendered differently. Wouldn't be better if feedback contained computed HTML doms and you could render yourself with a given client?
The really crappy old browsers won't see the feedback button. We do store and show HTML doms, which helps to debug if necessary, but most of our users collect feedback on such a large scale that it would be too time consuming to offer a manual solution like this.
You could do this client side with https://github.com/niklasvh/html2canvas
Open source solution : http://experiments.hertzen.com/jsfeedback/
It uses html2canvas to generate site screenshot on client side.
It uses html2canvas to generate site screenshot on client side.
I wish Google would share the process post submission and how they analyze and respond to feedback. I find a process like this to capture feedback over <or disproportionately> solving the easy part of a feedback loop.
I have to imagine that Google has a pretty automated process to understand the feedback - i'd rather see that. That's the problem I've always had with applications with millions of users.
I have to imagine that Google has a pretty automated process to understand the feedback - i'd rather see that. That's the problem I've always had with applications with millions of users.
Every piece of feedback is analyzed (if it passes a spam test) by a team dedicated to that product's feedback
By hand? Seems a bit un google doesn't it.
Everyone looks at it. That doesn't solve any problem.
Everyone looks at it. That doesn't solve any problem.
The first step to making software do what humans do, is to analyse what humans do.
a huge_asshole with 4 posts says it's so, who are we to question it?
Still no way to contact human for a problem. No feedback or any kind of acknowledgement about anything.
And my only problem with Google only appears when I'm not logged in. The irony.
And my only problem with Google only appears when I'm not logged in. The irony.
What good is Feedback when Google is determined to take away features from something like Google Books? You can complain all you want but they won't revert. Just making it easier to complain does nothing to fix anything.
Feedback != Complaining
The difference is subtle, but important.
Feedback: "I would use your product more if it did x."
Complaining: "Your product sucks because it doesn't do x."
In short: you're absolutely correct. Making it easier to complain doesn't help. Making it easier to give feedback does help.
The difference is subtle, but important.
Feedback: "I would use your product more if it did x."
Complaining: "Your product sucks because it doesn't do x."
In short: you're absolutely correct. Making it easier to complain doesn't help. Making it easier to give feedback does help.
No: what's necessary is listening, both to complaints and feedback. Having a massive data sink doesn't help.
Agreed. In my experience Google is notoriously bad at customer service of all types, and attempts to share constructive feedback are ignored. So making it easier to provide feedback is worthless if you don't have a system to actually interpret and implement that feedback. I think it's simply a move to make the user feel like their suggestions are valued.
Exactly my damn point. Reading is important too. snark
By curiosity, what features? I have "Google Play Books" but haven't used it much.
Google Play Books is not books.google.com, which has all the public domain books they got from public libraries.
The specific functionality they took away is devastating to regular users like me. When searching, results would show if a book was already in your library. You could also add it to a shelf from the search result itself. Now the search results lack that info and you must click on each result to see if it's one you already saw. This is sheer hell for discovering books that weren't there between searches.
[edit for URL fix]
The specific functionality they took away is devastating to regular users like me. When searching, results would show if a book was already in your library. You could also add it to a shelf from the search result itself. Now the search results lack that info and you must click on each result to see if it's one you already saw. This is sheer hell for discovering books that weren't there between searches.
[edit for URL fix]
This feedback webapp had been available to Google+ users since Google+ initially launched as invite only to the public. It used to be at the bottom right of the page.
Was it for all pages or just G+ pages? The only time I saw it before was after a Youtube UI update (long before G+), and I was sad I couldn't use it elsewhere on their site... Definitely glad that it's been rolled out to more parts of their site now.
you can get idea about how its done from, http://www.html5rocks.com/en/tutorials/streaming/screenshare...
It's a neat bit of coding, but is it really easier than just snapping a screenshot and attaching it to an email? I know what I think.....
An astoundingly high percentage of people would be unable to snap a screenshot and attach it. Let alone highlight the issue and black out anything sensitive.
Doing it within the app also gives you a lot more detail (who the user is, where they were accessing, what browser they were using, their OS, any client side exceptions, their exact actions, etc etc) without needing to rely on the user to provide it.
Doing it within the app also gives you a lot more detail (who the user is, where they were accessing, what browser they were using, their OS, any client side exceptions, their exact actions, etc etc) without needing to rely on the user to provide it.
It might be easier for you, and for lots of other HN readers too, but what about all the other people in the world? People who when they hear the word "code" think vertically scrolling green letters on the screen.
You missed the "edit screenshot in photo editor to highlight and black out info" part. Having used this internally, I can say yes, this tool flows very well. I don't know if we do this, but you could imagine clustering feedback by the highlight pattern to automatically gauge the frequency of similiar complaints.
yes, yes it is.
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/4912092/using-html5-canva...
tl;dr JavaScript can read the DOM and render a fairly accurate representation of that using canvas