[General] Public Wish List

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Bosparan
Posts: 290
Last visit: Fri Oct 08, 2021 11:59 am

[General] Public Wish List

Post by Bosparan »

Hello,

here I am again with yet another odd idea:
Most of the times we add a feature request, we get told it's put on the Wish List and - often enough - some time later it gets added to the Product. However, this "Wish List" is really a bit a mythical object, because quite frankly: None of us have any idea what's really on it.
Taking a look at the feature request subforum, most requests are simply posted by a single user, you get back at him or her for clarification and then tell them you added it to the list. That's it. Sometimes another user seconds the idea, to lend it some emphasis, but that's rare enough.
This basically means you only get feedback from pro-active users, whether through the forums or via direct email / support ticket.

That got me thinking "isn't there a way to give more transparency and access feedback from a larger segment of users?"

So here's the idea:
Create a public list of feature requests
- One per Product
- Only you can add items to it, gathered from all input sources of feedback
- Split each product-list into two segments ("Minor Feature" / "Major Feature")
- Each user gets to vote on each list (3 votes for minor, 1 vote for major features)
- Each item on the lists can obtain comments (so users can discuss and refine it, refinements to be included at Sapien's sole discretion)

Thus we would have a better insight into what is actually already requested and makes it easier for people to make their voice heard (often enough, people don't have the time to do a full feature request or haven't thought fully through an issue they have to reach a feature request someone else went ahead and formalized).

On the other hand, such a list could create pressure on you for a specific feature to be implemented when you don't want to do so right now.
To prevent this, a few measures could be taken:
- Add a Sapien-Only comment field where you can post information on implementation plans (such as "The next time we touch this system" or something like that).
- Don't show the actual vote numbers. Maybe something as simple as the "top requested features" section, or plain sorting by votecount without actually showing it. That makes arguments like "Why won't you implement this right now when 50% of all voters voted for this?!" rather hard.

Cheers,
Bosparan
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Alexander Riedel
Posts: 8479
Last visit: Thu Mar 28, 2024 9:29 am
Answers: 19
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Re: [General] Public Wish List

Post by Alexander Riedel »

We will add this request to our wish list ...

Jokes aside, everyone is welcome to post, send or submit feature request here or any other way. I think we have a fairly good track record of listening and implementing things once we get around to it.

Implementing a democratic system for a process that is definitely not democratic will just annoy everyone. Besides, creating, maintaining and updating such a system will
take away time from actually working on useful features.

So the short answer is, no, we won't do that. You will just have to trust us that your suggestions are listed somewhere. If you feel something fell through the cracks, you are always welcome to ask.
Alexander Riedel
SAPIEN Technologies, Inc.
Bosparan
Posts: 290
Last visit: Fri Oct 08, 2021 11:59 am

Re: [General] Public Wish List

Post by Bosparan »

Hi Alexander,
Alexander Riedel wrote:I think we have a fairly good track record of listening and implementing things once we get around to it.
Actually: No. "Fairly good" is a pale description of your record in this: It's absolutely awesome! I should know, given how many of my requests you have implemented over the past few years!
Alexander Riedel wrote:Implementing a democratic system for a process that is definitely not democratic will just annoy everyone.
Actually, I think there's a misunderstanding here:
I never intended to advocate a democratic system:
- You still choose whether to add a feature request to the list or not (so nothing you don't consider worth doing would end up on it)
- You don't publish the actual numbers 'voted' for a request

The intended main benefit is to increase the amount of feedback coming in, covering less engaged users, as well as those who tend to not think about what might be possible at all and rather live with "the way things are". We introduced this for our internal toolkit in January. Since then participation in feature requests has increased by ~130% and two real usability issues were uncovered. I'll grant that it's a significantly lower userbase (32 total, so no comparison to yours), so I'd guess both numbers and impact would vary for you (I wouldn't expect big usability issues for one thing).
Alexander Riedel wrote:Besides, creating, maintaining and updating such a system will take away time from actually working on useful features.
While the maintenance of this feature taking away resources is very well taken, I have no idea how your resources are spread. For example in our shop we have dedicated web developers - thus it wouldn't impact PowerShell development/projects. If for you web development and PSS development are in direct contention for developers, that's of course major point on the "no" side.
Alexander Riedel wrote:So the short answer is, no, we won't do that. You will just have to trust us that your suggestions are listed somewhere. If you feel something fell through the cracks, you are always welcome to ask.
Aye. Asking rarely hurts though :). Also: you certainly do have my trust (*subtly-point-at-list-of-feature-requests-of-mine-you-implemented*).

Cheers,
Bosparan
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