I recently started using the Microsoft Office Live Beta. I found this service useful but I could see many points for improvement so I decided to fill in the survey. It proved to be a very annoying experience as the survey just keeps going and going and going asking the same questions over and over again:

For "question n: what would you improve?" I gave an extensive list of points.

For "question n+2: please describe why you indicated you were a bit dissatisfied with the service" I referred to my answer for question n

For "question n+4: please describe why you would not always recommend this service to a friend/collegue" I again referred to my answer for question n for Pete's sake

For "question n+6: what could we improve in order for you to recommend ..." I answered: Aaaaarrrggh - SEE MY REPLY TO QUESTION n !!!!one111eleven!!!1

And to top it off, on of the final questions: "Which of the following categories best describes your age?"

1. 0-18
2. 18-19
3. 20-24
4. ...

What do you mean "best"? You mean "correctly" right?

 

bjolling:

1. 0-18
2. 18-19
3. 20-24
4. ...

What do you mean "best"? You mean "correctly" right?

Well, if you are 18, you can still choose which describes you *better*: underage or just barely legal.

agtrier:

bjolling:

1. 0-18
2. 18-19
3. 20-24
4. ...

What do you mean "best"? You mean "correctly" right?

Well, if you are 18, you can still choose which describes you *better*: underage or just barely legal.

Now it makes sense :-)

bjolling:

For "question n+2: please describe why you indicated you were a bit dissatisfied with the service" I referred to my answer for question n

NO! WRONG! BAD FEEDBACK!

Subdivide your answer to question n such that the relevant information is under the most appropriate question.

Let's say I answer question n with: 

"I would change the search feature to have a user-configurable font because the existing selection is hard to read and search is critical to the product. "

Now I see the other questions. Should I now say "see question n" over and over again?

NO!

n: The search feature.
n+2: The search feature's font is hard to read.
n+4: Search is critical to the product.
n+6: Allow user configuration of the search feature's font.

Why? Because now each and every question stands on its own. Imagine that question n+6 goes to a different person than question n. Imagine that person is me. I look at your answer to it.

"See question n"

Well, screw you, buddy. I don't have your answer to question n, and thanks to the privacy policies on our web site, I can't get it either. You've just destroyed any possibility that your suggestion will ever be implemented, and it's all your own stupid fault. Next!

Whereas if I got "allow user configuration of the search feature's font", I have everything I need and can happily submit this feature request to the dev team who will probably go ahead and do it.

Should it be done better? Probably. But beta testing software is a job which involves work. If you want to bitch about Microsoft, you don't need to burden yourself with the experience of pre-release software. You can bitch about anything you want for any reason you like. But if you're going to saddle yourself with the task of using pre-release software, you owe it to yourself to make it count. Make your feedback meaningful. Make it useful. Make it something that could, in fact, make a difference.

bjolling:

What do you mean "best"? You mean "correctly" right?

Microsoft deals extensively with developers. Developers are... interesting.

Do you mean my age in decimal? That's 39. But in hex, it's 27. And in octal, it's 47.

Besides, all your ages are negative! For any x - y where y > x, the result is < 0, and my age is positive.

So choose the best description. Not the correct one. None of them are correct, because nothing is correct, thanks to Heisenberg and Godel...

CDarklock:

NO! WRONG! BAD FEEDBACK!

Subdivide your answer to question n such that the relevant information is under the most appropriate question.

Let's say I answer question n with: 

"I would change the search feature to have a user-configurable font because the existing selection is hard to read and search is critical to the product. "

Now I see the other questions. Should I now say "see question n" over and over again?

NO!

I see your point but you're forgetting that when I was at question n, I had no idea there would be 3 more similar questions. So I put all my recommendations and remarks at the first opportunity I saw, being the "What would you improve?" question. I'm also afraid of hitting the back button during these types of surveys (at the risk of having to restart the survey - it's more likely then you think), otherwise I would have copy/pasted the same answer iso "please refer to..."

The best survey I have ever done was one that had an overview pane to the left and a details pane to the right. The overview pane allowed to jump from one question to another at will and indicated which questions were already answered. I always had a clear view on where I was in the survey. But Microsoft didn't even provide a "answered i out of n questions".

CDarklock:

Well, screw you, buddy. I don't have your answer to question n, and thanks to the privacy policies on our web site, I can't get it either. You've just destroyed any possibility that your suggestion will ever be implemented, and it's all your own stupid fault. Next!

Whereas if I got "allow user configuration of the search feature's font", I have everything I need and can happily submit this feature request to the dev team who will probably go ahead and do it.

Should it be done better? Probably. But beta testing software is a job which involves work. If you want to bitch about Microsoft, you don't need to burden yourself with the experience of pre-release software. You can bitch about anything you want for any reason you like. But if you're going to saddle yourself with the task of using pre-release software, you owe it to yourself to make it count. Make your feedback meaningful. Make it useful. Make it something that could, in fact, make a difference.

This part merits its own reply. I didn't bitch about Microsoft, I complained about how unneccessarily painful filling the survey was. I actually like Microsoft which is the reason I spent some of my time to take the survey. So out of the 50 so questions I answered, 3 weren't as valuable as they could have been. Would MS appreciate the feedback on the other 47?

But in the end, I really DON'T CARE if they implement my suggestions. I will get what I want regardless of what MS does with them. Like you said: developers are an interesting type of people. Either Office Live improves enough to be useful for me OR I will create a satisfactory solution MYSELF - just because I can. I'm currently installing Windows 2008 Hyper-V Core on my brand new server in my basement. Soon there will be a virtual machine running MOSS 2007 which will do exactly what I need without me having to answer endless variations to the same question. The only downside to this solution is that I will have to open a port in my firewall and set up a route. Choices, choices...

bjolling:

when I was at question n, I had no idea there would be 3 more similar questions. So I put all my recommendations and remarks at the first opportunity I saw, being the "What would you improve?" question. I'm also afraid of hitting the back button during these types of surveys (at the risk of having to restart the survey - it's more likely then you think), otherwise I would have copy/pasted the same answer iso "please refer to..."

The principle holds. You type out the actual answer to the question, in a shorter and more specific form. "See question n" is likely to be unhelpful for the person who handles your form.

bjolling:

I didn't bitch about Microsoft, I complained about how unneccessarily painful filling the survey was. I actually like Microsoft which is the reason I spent some of my time to take the survey. So out of the 50 so questions I answered, 3 weren't as valuable as they could have been.

I tend to connect the dots and see "this Microsoft survey is unnecessarily painful" as bitching about Microsoft.

I also tend to be a little annoyed by the nature of your complaint: "Three of the questions on a fifty question survey were not as helpful as they could have been. So I gave answers that were not as helpful as they could have been."

I mean, WTF? That's just childish.

CDarklock:

I tend to connect the dots and see "this Microsoft survey is unnecessarily painful" as bitching about Microsoft.

I also tend to be a little annoyed by the nature of your complaint: "Three of the questions on a fifty question survey were not as helpful as they could have been. So I gave answers that were not as helpful as they could have been."

I mean, WTF? That's just childish.

No need to call me names. Please try to stay on-topic.

Hey, I even said that I find the Microsoft Office Live offering useful. That would make me a M$ fanboi on some parts of the internet.

I also like connecting dots but you have to connect the right ones otherwise your picture gets messed up. The survey was not hosted by Microsoft itself so I was bitching about the external company Microsoft hired to host their survey. If they would have provided a simple way of navigating between questions, I could have copy/pasted my answers and there wouldn't have been a "see previous answers" reply anywhere.

 

bjolling:

No need to call me names. Please try to stay on-topic.

You must be new here.

MrsPost:

bjolling:

No need to call me names. Please try to stay on-topic.

You must be new here.

Or maybe just naive. For example: I do believe you are female until proven otherwise :-)

bjolling:

No need to call me names.

I did not call you anything. I called your actions childish.

bjolling:

The survey was not hosted by Microsoft itself so I was bitching about the external company Microsoft hired to host their survey.

Where is the name of that company in your post? You named Microsoft. Why didn't you name the external company? If you couldn't, why did you name Microsoft?