Brandon Wirtz's Digital Mix

Chris "Lockergnome" Pirillo and I generally have somewhat similar views on things, but this time I think his idea is just dumb. The Concept behind freedbacking is that you vent publicly, and the feedback gets to the developers and they fix your issues. The problem with this scenario is who the hell are you to gripe?

Chris, and I, are not on the same playing field when it comes to our ability to get our opinions read. It would be like comparing John Madden to Tim Stout, Rush Limbaugh to Carlos Watson. And me to most of Chris's readers is as much a gap.

When Chris or I bitch about Windows Vista Microsoft listens, sometimes ignoring and sometimes sending us feed back about why something can't or shouldn't be changed. When I was an MVP the same was true. But the average reader doesn't have that report with Microsoft, and as such their opinion in a public gripe isn't tempered with years of respect and report.

For the average guy getting your feed back heard should be more about finding people who are accessible and championing them to carry your most important complaints, or feature requests on your behalf. Forums are a great way to get feed back on your ideas, because honestly most the time developers aren't stupid and didn't leave a feature out because they hate you, nor did they implement a feature specifically to piss you off. More likely you were just not part of their test scenario and so the way you want something and the way it is implemented it are different.

Some Examples... I have a friend who suffers Red Green Color Blindness his company had a database program written not too long ago and the person creating the UI made the forms green red text 7 days before and after Christmas to be "Festive" the result was the UI was all but impossible for him to use. The lady with 13 cats who does data entry thought it was the best feature ever.

If you have a complaint with software don't gripe to the masses until you have talked to the manufacturer. Then if your Freedback is blown off use forums to bolster support for your idea.