In my years of web development experience I have been through many a web site update, from the iterative revisions of web applications being developed for clients to the massive site updates at Last.fm being developed, beta tested and then released to millions of passionate site users. Through these times I have learned much about the process of updating sites and applications and inevitably how to handle the feedback that, by default, comes to you from your clients and their audience.
My on-going involvement in discussions surrounding the update to the Whitney Museum web site brings to the fore many of these lessons I have learned and reminds me of some of the crazier times I have had in the past dealing with passionate and committed site users.
Silence Is Not Golden
The first and most obvious lesson I have learned through the years is that silence never pays off, whilst telling half truths to cover up for things is no better. Silence is only amplified in this day and age by the advent of services such a Twitter. Jason Falls makes an excellent point in his blog post What Tiger’s Silence Should Teach You About Social Media regarding the golf star’s response to recent events:
When someone is saying something about your brand online, whether it’s good, bad or indifferent, and you don’t participate in the conversation, you become Tiger Woods. People will create excuses or answers for you that are probably far worse than the truth. Your image will be tattered. Your connection with your customers will be weakened.
Social media is about conversations and engagement, not just a one way street for propaganda, and by using it and taking the bull by the horns, you can quell people’s fears and easily rectify issues they have raised. Often the silence from a company or an institution simply adds fuel to the fire of emotions that people feel and are expressing openly, and it becomes a vicious circle.
Show & Tell – What’s Changed?
If things don’t make sense, users may or may not look for answers. If they don’t, then both you and they have lost out. If they do, you will need to satisfy their quest for further information. That being said, many initial questions and possible eventual frustration, can simply be avoided by guiding your users through new features or site modifications. A little explanation can go a long way. Taking the time and effort to hand-hold customers using video/audio techniques, not just inch-upon-inch of written word, will help no end.
Annotation and tool tips that can be switched off when no longer required are an easy way to inject context sensitive help. Providing fixed period alerts when things happen, such as the changing of the colours of your site at sunset in NYC, as the new whitney.org does, with a brief explanatory text and link to a page with further pertinent information about the unique idea, can’t do any harm.
Gather Feedback & Respond Openly
When you are involved in a project it is easy to be emotionally attached to it. You are of course investing a lot of your time and energy in that project and it is, in essence, your baby, therefore it is hard when people respond in a negative manner, but as the old adage goes, there’s no smoke without fire.
Being the project developer, business owner or institutional client you have to remember that you are atypical. Your site users are nothing like you, and you will obviously see things from a very different angle and elements of a site that implicitly make sense to you may not make immediate, or any, sense to your target audience. On top of this, as a developer, you can do as much as possible to test and re-test every user journey and system setup niche that exists but variations will always slip through the net, and your audience are of course here to help you catch such issues and they have a vested interest in doing so.
At Last.fm, and as you sporadically see on sites as you surf around the net, particularly technology based sites, we used to provide a beta feedback toolbar, giving testers and subsequent soft-launch users the ability to provide quick & easy feedback. Whether negative or positive, this would be processed, digested and worked upon. Known issues and topics would be listed in a public place and updates made frequently to keep users abreast of the goings on with the site. This was an invaluable tool, both for the development team to help polish up the site, but also as a means to let our site users know that they were important to that process and we valued them, and that they knew things were being done to rectify core issues.
Ticket Tracking for Problems & Feedback
The fact that commentary can be spread across multiple channels, from sites to blogs to Twitter to Facebook shouldn’t necessarily stop you from (a) keeping track of it, and (b) doing something about it. I will never forget how a comment about the quality of service from Songkick, the UK based gig tracking service, lead to a trouble ticket being filed in their online support system and a response being processed to me in a very professional and efficient manner. The benefit to them and to me in this instance was huge, and it certainly left a positive impression.
Taking individual problems and threads of discussion through to a positive conclusion can only be good for all parties concerned. It shows that you are committed to your users and to a process of improvement that means your site and service can only more easily attain its goals, whether that be of a monetary value in terms of sales and subscriptions, or be it in terms of site traffic, increased memberships or actual footfall to a physical location. All of which can only lead to a positive outcome in terms of brand or customer loyalty.
Bringing Issues to a Positive Conclusion
The internet is an ever expanding place, and if you wish to do business there, whether in the commercial or cultural sector you need to be able to support your operation properly and however negative the collective expression your audience is ostensibly trying to help you improve your site or service and you shouldn’t forget that. Never disregard any advice simply because you do not wish to hear it.
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I am, for want of a better word, a web developer. Practising since '96 and
focused on front and back-end work with a slant for optimisation.
I love music, art, and helping people, traits which I hope are borne out here.
Read more about me and this blog on the 
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Julia Lamb Dec 3, 2009
hi vincent, i agree with you, but i think this type of pr management, while smart, goes against human nature. hard to change thousands of years of evolution!
i enjoyed your review of the whitney site, even though it was pretty tough. do you ever think twice about calling out other developers, or do you see it as an obligation? often times, people shy away from honest critiques like yours because they don’t want to limit their professional networking opportunities and so on.
finally, have you received a response from anyone over at the whitney or the agency in light of these posts? in short, have they initiated a dialogue with you about your criticisms? it seems that would be the smartest way to diffuse further criticism.
Vincent Roman Dec 3, 2009
Hey Julia,
Thanks for the comment.
As you suggest it is counter to human nature and as with all things always easier said than done. It does take a real desire to change but the benefits are worth it.
I don’t make it my job to call out developers, and often I will think twice but in this case I felt an overwhelming urge to write simply because I was floored by the net result of their labours. No doubt there will be more to come.
The real advantage here is that I do not work in the museum field, and am not burning professional bridges in my home city, because I am not based out of NYC. I don’t make criticism as a default position, but I think where it is due, it is always good to try and raise standards.
I haven’t received any direct response though I can see people from the Whitney, other museums and most likely LBA viewing the site day-in-day-out. Time will likely diffuse the fire, but having just read comments on the LBA site about the work, I feel like they have thrown down the gauntlet for further analysis of their output.
So stand by for more up close and personal commentary on the site.