Have you ever submitted feedback on a page in the MSDN library for Dynamics NAV and wondered what happens to it? If you give a rating by clicking the stars in the top right corner of any topic, a feedback text box opens.*
You click Send, and then what?
We read and analyze every piece of feedback that comes in. We look at ratings for individual topics, average ratings for all NAV Developer and IT Pro Help that is published on MSDN, and changes in ratings over time. Unfortunately, we don’t get very many ratings, but we use whatever we get. We also review the text feedback. Here’s how we’ve categorized all 46 comments that we’ve gotten since we started publishing content on MSDN in December of 2008:
- Fixed (12) – We made changes to the topic based on the feedback.
- In Progress (8) – We currently have active work items assigned to writers.
- No Action (26)
Let me explain a little more about the “No Action” pieces of feedback. Out of those 26, we categorized 6 as “negative,” 11 as “positive” and 9 as “neutral.” We still learn something about what’s helpful or not helpful to you from (almost) all pieces of feedback, but they don’t require any action from us.
Here are a few examples of text feedback that we’ve received.
You told us that the topic How to: Redesign Matrix Forms was “not thorough, there should have been more detail.” So we added a new Walkthrough about redesigning a matrix form and linked from How to: Redesign Matrix Forms to the new Walkthrough. This feedback now goes in the Fixed bucket.
The “neutral” No Action bucket usually contains incomplete comments. We’ve gotten comments like “…” or “ths.” Another example of neutral feedback is a comment about MSDN, not about NAV Help, such as “ScriptFree is much easier to read and navigate.” (Yeah, I like the Lightweight and ScriptFree options for the MSDN experience, too!)
The feedback in the “positive” No Action bucket makes my day. It’s great to hear that topics are helpful. Comments like, “excellent article, explained well and clear, very helpful” or “good one” are a nice pat on the back for me and the other writers. We track these as an indication of what areas of Help to continue to focus on in future versions.
The ones in the “negative” No Action bucket are the most difficult. The information that “This is a hopeless article” or that a topic is “bad” or occasionally, a word that is not fit to print here, is definitely good information. We know we’ve missed the mark. But there’s not enough information to know exactly what you didn’t like or what we can do to improve the topic. That’s why these go into the no action bucket. I wish I could chat with everyone who submitted something that lands in this bucket and ask for more detail. We can tell you’re frustrated with the topic and we want to help, just tell us how!
The next time you read something in the MSDN library, take a second to give us your honest feedback. We’re listening!
-Jill Frank
UPDATE July 23, 2010
*Only the Classic view on MSDN has the “Click to Rate and Give Feedback” stars. If you are using the Lightweight view, click Preferences in the top right corner, select Classic, and then click OK to switch to the Classic view. If you are using the ScriptFree view, click Classic in the top right corner to switch the view. Now you can submit your feedback about Microsoft Dynamics NAV Help.