How do I get the best possible feedback from beta users?
I've been building out www.ideaisland.io for a little while now, and the time has come to begin beta testing. This is my first time launching a proper beta, and I'm questioning the way I go about it. What sort of feedback should I be looking for, and what sort of questions should I ask on a feedback form?
I have a simple tally form right now that asks respondents to rate the app on a 5 scale on usability, usefulness, and design. I also ask them what is one thing they liked and one thing they disliked about the application. I feel like I'm not asking enough of my beta users, but I don't want to give them a daunting list of questions.
How do you guys collect feedback from beta users and what kind of feedback do you ask for? Thank you so much for any advice on this!
I've worked as a beta tester for several companies in the past, and I've learned that there's one thing you can do to get the best possible feedback from your beta users: keep an open mind.
When you're working on a product, it's easy to get caught up in the details and forget that the whole point of beta testing is to get real-world feedback from people outside your company. That means that sometimes what they say—even if you disagree with it—might not make sense at first glance. Or maybe they just don't understand what you mean by "best possible." But don't be afraid of asking them why they think something doesn't work or isn't good enough. They might surprise you! You might learn something new about your product or your audience, and maybe even find a way to improve it before launching it into the world.
That's interesting. I've also found that I'm getting the best insights when I ask people broad-based questions.
For example, just asking people to "think out loud" while browsing the page vs. asking more closed-asked questions.
Then, based on the feedback you get, the questions you should ask will surface themselves.
Correct me of I'm wrong.
Thats a good point. Its so scary to release so much work into the public for scrutiny, but you're so right about keeping an open mind. Digging deeper into the feedback they provide to learn more about my own product is insightful, I haven't thought of that before.
I'd say, set up a number of doubts about your own application and try to get a specific data to help you improve it.
As someone already said, you cannot ask very broad questions because no user ever analyses the application as a whole, unless is a super user and is literally paid to find flaws in your app.
Good idea, instead of hoping they don't bring up the weak points, exposing them into the open and getting feedback on the worst parts would probably yield far better feedback.
Hands down follow The Mom Test ethos of customer feedback and interviews. Would love to hear what tools you use to track and measure responses though!
Yep, would recommend http://momtestbook.com/ too
It all depends on the quality of your beta users. It's really hard to get useful insight from a bunch of randoms that sign up to your app because they may not be your target market.
If you can you should identify your ideal customer profile and place more weight on their answers. I'd try to interview users one on one and position questions around what their "Job to be Done" is and how your product fits into the equation. It sounds like a lot to ask but if a user is genuinely interested in your offering then they should be able to make 10 or 15 mins. I'd recommend the book "When coffee and kale compete" if you're interested in learning more about JTBD
I like that, I'll try to find more ideal customers to beta test the application, and cater to their feedback around JTBDs. Thanks!
Best of luck, feel free to reach out if you want someone to bounce ideas off. Still learning this stuff myself
I would say you want 2 sorts of feedback - Qualitative and Quantitative.
Use the survey to ask a few basic questions that can point you where things could be better then target those areas with more depth by interviewing people.
You are spot on you don't want to give a long list of questions, no one will answer but if you can get them talking to you they will be very engaged I suspect.
Yeah the interviews is likely where the juicy bits of feedback are.
Definitely! I am going to start using the phrase "juicy bits of feedback" 😀
You can try to ask them low-effort and on-point audio feedback using a vero page (www.vero.fm).
Personally, this is my favorite way of giving feedback - it is faster and I can express myself better.
I can set you up if you think it is worth a try.
Try feedback boards from https://productroad.com
You will be able to create several categories for different types of feedback, notify users about which of their ideas will be implemented, etc.
Cool product! I'm trying to use all free tools right now to bootstrap as long as I can, but when we hit ramen profitability I'll check it out.
We have a free plan, it's not limited by time and allows provide feedback for 100 users. Hopefully, you will be profitable enough when you reach almost 1,000 users (as a rule, feedback is left by about 10% of users).
The best possible way to get feedback:
In case you decide to ask everyone and try to satisfy everybody - this will bury your startup. Can help you close them for the full price, just DM me.
Definitely important to prioritize paying users' feedback, as a solo dev I don't have time for everyone's feature requests lol
Hey Ty! I think your approach to avoid giving users a "daunting list of questions" is the right approach. But it looks like you just need to be a bit more specific. Asking someone to tell you one thing they liked and one thing they disliked is pretty broad. Maybe consider dividing the app (in your mind) into its different elements and think about what it is about each specific element that you would like feedback on? You can keep the broad question if you like, but perhaps leave it for the end as a sort of "other comments" type of question.
I like that, similar to what programmer_network said, I think I will expose the weak points of the application and try to get the most relevant feedback possible, and then have the two broad questions at the end to see what other kind of feedback I can get from them that I wasn't expecting. Thanks!