With respect to situations where people are complaining or being critical of a policy or a behavior, one should bear in mind that a compliant is more likely to be voiced than a neutral or positive attitude about the same thing. As a TV writer, I can tell you that the amount of critical ‘hate-mail’ I receive about an episode often conflicts with the audience polling results for the episode. My ‘hate-mail’ might outpace other messages by two to one for an episode which polls in the overwhelmingly positive range. I suspect that this comes down to how much more likely a person is to act on a negative opinion than on a positive one.
A point I think others missed here is that in the TV example, there’s more data than the situations the OP talks about, so mscottveach can say there’s a disparity instead of just having the hatemail. Maybe more situations should involve anonymous polling.
Interesting point! I think what tends to be voiced vs. not voiced varies a lot based on both the field and the culture involved. I’ve been in some environments where it seems like everyone loves to complain even when things are fine, but I’ve also been in some where people are very reticent to speak up even when there’s a problem.
I wonder if there are useful statistics anywhere on how this applies to different areas, as this seems like something that might be helpful to take into account when thinking about how best to process feedback.
I think what tends to be voiced vs. not voiced varies a lot based on both the field and the culture involved. I’ve been in some environments where it seems like everyone loves to complain even when things are fine, but I’ve also been in some where people are very reticent to speak up even when there’s a problem.
I’m not sure that’s at odds with what mscottveach is saying. To put it in different words, while the amount of feedback might vary, I don’t think the ratio of positive vs. negative feedback varies. It’s the very rare situation where the number of messages that say, “This was good, everything went as planned or intended,” outnumbers the messages that talk about how something went wrong.
I’m not sure that’s at odds with what mscottveach is saying. To put it in different words, while the amount of feedback might vary, I don’t think the ratio of positive vs. negative feedback varies. It’s the very rare situation where the number of messages that say, “This was good, everything went as planned or intended,” outnumbers the messages that talk about how something went wrong.
Oh, I quite disagree. I’ve often found it normal for people to give positive feedback only or for positive feedback to far outweigh negative. In fact, I’m a little surprised to hear you say this because my experience has often been the opposite—that it can be rare and difficult to get people to give negative feedback or genuine criticism of something!
For instance, when I’ve helped organize parties or social events I’ve IIRC heard almost only positive things, which is not to say that my parties and events were astoundingly good but rather that the norms favor positive over negative feedback there.
Similarly, I recently started up an online ladder for players of a game that I like, and the feedback there has been quite positive as well. I don’t think I did a superb job in doing that—I actually released it months after I’d been planning to—but people tend to give positive feedback on those sorts of projects.
In fact, I’ve thought before that this positive bias in feedback can often be an obstacle to progression, as flawed projects don’t get corrected as easily if people don’t point out the flaws—note also Said’s comment about how it can be difficult to get people to point out even egregious errors in software/web design!
Oh, yes, that’s a good point, and I have updated in your direction. I was thinking more along the lines of things like product reviews and survey feedback, where the user is much more likely to take the time to complete the feedback form if they’ve had a negative experience than if they’ve had a positive one.
Edited to add: I wonder if there’s a distinction between unsolicited feedback and requesting feedback, or giving feedback to an individual vs. feedback to a corporate entity.
where the user is much more likely to take the time to complete the feedback form if they’ve had a negative experience than if they’ve had a positive one.
Sounds like they’re being used as bug reports. Is there usually another way of making bug reports?
With respect to situations where people are complaining or being critical of a policy or a behavior, one should bear in mind that a compliant is more likely to be voiced than a neutral or positive attitude about the same thing. As a TV writer, I can tell you that the amount of critical ‘hate-mail’ I receive about an episode often conflicts with the audience polling results for the episode. My ‘hate-mail’ might outpace other messages by two to one for an episode which polls in the overwhelmingly positive range. I suspect that this comes down to how much more likely a person is to act on a negative opinion than on a positive one.
A point I think others missed here is that in the TV example, there’s more data than the situations the OP talks about, so mscottveach can say there’s a disparity instead of just having the hatemail. Maybe more situations should involve anonymous polling.
Interesting point! I think what tends to be voiced vs. not voiced varies a lot based on both the field and the culture involved. I’ve been in some environments where it seems like everyone loves to complain even when things are fine, but I’ve also been in some where people are very reticent to speak up even when there’s a problem.
I wonder if there are useful statistics anywhere on how this applies to different areas, as this seems like something that might be helpful to take into account when thinking about how best to process feedback.
I’m not sure that’s at odds with what mscottveach is saying. To put it in different words, while the amount of feedback might vary, I don’t think the ratio of positive vs. negative feedback varies. It’s the very rare situation where the number of messages that say, “This was good, everything went as planned or intended,” outnumbers the messages that talk about how something went wrong.
Oh, I quite disagree. I’ve often found it normal for people to give positive feedback only or for positive feedback to far outweigh negative. In fact, I’m a little surprised to hear you say this because my experience has often been the opposite—that it can be rare and difficult to get people to give negative feedback or genuine criticism of something!
For instance, when I’ve helped organize parties or social events I’ve IIRC heard almost only positive things, which is not to say that my parties and events were astoundingly good but rather that the norms favor positive over negative feedback there.
Similarly, I recently started up an online ladder for players of a game that I like, and the feedback there has been quite positive as well. I don’t think I did a superb job in doing that—I actually released it months after I’d been planning to—but people tend to give positive feedback on those sorts of projects.
In fact, I’ve thought before that this positive bias in feedback can often be an obstacle to progression, as flawed projects don’t get corrected as easily if people don’t point out the flaws—note also Said’s comment about how it can be difficult to get people to point out even egregious errors in software/web design!
Oh, yes, that’s a good point, and I have updated in your direction. I was thinking more along the lines of things like product reviews and survey feedback, where the user is much more likely to take the time to complete the feedback form if they’ve had a negative experience than if they’ve had a positive one.
Edited to add: I wonder if there’s a distinction between unsolicited feedback and requesting feedback, or giving feedback to an individual vs. feedback to a corporate entity.
Sounds like they’re being used as bug reports. Is there usually another way of making bug reports?