Product Design for the Web: Principles of Designing and Releasing Web Products

Chapter 13. Listen and Learn

Whenever we design a product, we want to know if it had its intended effect. We also want to understand all aspects of what happens to it once it leaves the nest. Learning what happens requires feedback. When we learn how people feel about their experiences, it can be motivating or inspiring or educational or even humbling. We can also find out that our creation is being used in ways we never imagined.

Feedback—positive or negative—is very valuable. With Web product design, we can create scenarios in which getting feedback is not a one-way or one-time event. Instead, through feedback loops, we can receive more and more reactions over time and through repeated contacts, all along the way, and all of that input can ...