Linden Lab's Trouble With Talking to Users to Get Usable User Feedback

Reader Soda Sullivan wasn't happy with this example of Linden Lab responding to Second Life user needs, and feels the company isn't doing enough:

I would like to see the Lindens become less reactive to us residents and more PROactive and maybe try to get out in front of things. Talk to people. Don't poll them, TALK to them and see what they are looking for. 

The proactive point is definitely true, and it does seem the company doesn't do enough of that. At the same time, many Linden Lab staffers do hold regular SL-based meetings for users.

However, there's a downside to direct conversations like this, and it's a problem we talked about a lot during my Linden days:

Direct user feedback inevitably biases the listener toward hardcore players who for whatever reason have inordinate amounts of time and desire to give that feedback, often at the expense of casual and mid-range players who may have totally different, sometime contradictory, kinds of feedback to give. (If they had time or inclination to give it.)  

This is actually true of every online platform, just online games, and is one major reason why tech companies rely so much on user analytics instead -- that way, they can get a concrete, objective view of not what their users say they want, but what they're actually doing on the service, and how they're interacting with the user interface and other features.

None of this is to say Linden Lab (or any other service providers) shouldn't talk to their customers, just that this feedback needs to be weighed against actual user data. And in Linden Lab's case, facing another year of flat growth, the most important feedback is not necessarily from Second Life users, but from people who wanted to become Second Life users, but for whatever reason (or probably many), failed to convert along the way.

Image via SL Newser.

Comments

[Bixyl Shuftan]

Well, for one thing, complaints made at a Linden "Jail and Bail" are often tongue in cheek, and all there done for amusement. ;-)

[Pickles Shalala]

Is it really any big mystery why prospective customers don't stick to SL? There's been a decade worth of analysis, information, and statistics. Matching user decline to cause and effect should be easier than assembling a toddler's jigsaw puzzle.

Only LL groupthink could come up with a self-serving logic that customers who have jumped through hoops of fire and scaled the mountains of learning probably aren't the best informed source for why the product is tanking. Let's pick the brains of those who don't care and see what we find.

[Michael J Weiner]

AND this is why they failed. As was posted above, "Why listen to those who know your product best and make up the heart of it?"

I was in SL daily back about 8 years ago. I had started owning one sim and through hard work, listening to and helping it residents, and not assuming I always knew what was best, I grew it to 19 Sims. Then LL raised the tier TO ONLY THEIR NON MILLIONAIRE SIM OWNERS, despite us "little guys" warning them what would happen!

Look, the entire SL economy was built in the cost of land. That's all there was to understand. You Fuck with that, you Fuck with the entire SL economy. But in a move seemingly hell vent on destroying itself, LL raised tier 66%! I shit you not...66%' EXCEPT to those whip owned hundreds or thousands of Sims. They paid the old rate.

Clearly this was a move to knock out the little guys. But out was the little guys who have residents personal assistance, who helped them learn life in SL. We were the hands on, unpaid by LL staffers who made the prospect breathe...AND LL FORCED THEM ALL OUT OF BUSINESS WITH ONE MOVE.

I tried to warn them at the time and was accused of being a crybaby. I was called greedy. But what happened? I was right, wasn't I? They raised tier and the ripple effect shuttered the ounce innovative, creative, friendly, and most welcoming SL into what it is today... a sad shadow of its former self.

Anyone out there can write to me at [email protected] if you care to discuss it from an historical perspective.

[Michael J Weiner]

Sperry for the typos above...writing from my phone and the text in the text box is TINY!

[Dr. Lotta Baggage]

Yes, Michael J Weiner, it feels like they want to look at everything except themselves. When you need people to spend as much money as they need people to spend, relationships are required. LL sees itself as a "commune in the summer of love". To their 15 years of illegitimate offspring who are working their fields to pay their rent and feed their hungry lifestyles, they seem a lot like "users" who just won't commit.

Sansar wasn't a game. It was a monument to "refusal to commit" to relationships. It was always doomed.

The answers that LL needs on why they can't form new relationships isn't in the casual "Yuck, no way" responses they get from today's propositions. It's in the ugly anger and resentment mirrors of the lucrative failed relationships they threw in the trash yesterday.

[TDGunner]

Wow,,, it seems as though Linden Labs has never heard of voice of the customer. Why would you listen to those that are your hard core customers? BECAUSE they are the ones that pay the bills - duh.

The stupid is strong with Linden Labs.

[Juliette Jones]

Would be nice of LL worked on optimization of the platform - script speeds, region crossings, proper handling of gesture-based hotkeys, refined and more comfortable controls as a toggleable option - The answers are all there, SL is the most advanced creative platform to date but it doesn'r help anyone of the 'game' is a pain to play.

My honest suggestion would just purely be to enhance script speeds and the execution thereof. Not entirely certain how they would manage such a thing, perhaps having scripts run on a P2P-Local connection rather than jump through a billion hoops, but it's clear that needs to change if anything else. The rest is honestly solvable by us Residents and anyone willing to be a little creative.

[Soda Sullivan]

Let me try to flash out my previous comment a little bit and be clearer on what I was thinking. When I suggested a desire to see Linden staff communicate with users more, the last thing i meant was some sort of "meeting" as described. Those tend to be attended largely, as described. much older hardcore residents. These are folks usually sowing up loaded for bear with pitchforks and torches wanting to know why land is not cheaper and it usually not really a conversation.

All I have to go by is my personal experience and in six years I have met one Linden employee in world. One. We actually had several long conversations and he was fascinated with how I spent my time, why my home was like, how did Djing in Sl work, what were relationships like, etc. He wcurious why I would never consider living on the mianland (poor zoning laws and shitty grass textures). He had no concept of sales events and their popularity, or how outfit folders where actually used by residents. He usual response was "i am just a coder, but this is interesting".

That is the conversation more Lindens need to be REQUIRED to have. No meetings, Just log in and walk around talk with someone. And yes, analytics are VERY important. Crucial in fact! But with a world that really has no clear objectives and guidelines, I think they need to be tied to first hand evidence as well. A previous CEO apparently cut back on allowing Linden staff in world. To me that was a travesty. Good riddance. Ebbe seems to be a bit better. He will drop in once in a while, take some abuse and the leave.

Every LL employee should be required to spend XX amount of time logged in world. Period. Drill down to the new and medium user and find out what the world is like for them and how you might make it easier and better AND more advantages to your company's goals.
Anyway, there is my .22 cents worth. Do with it what you will.

[Zoey Mara]

But their analytics doesn't give an objective view , it only gives the view of what people do because its all people can do , if we cant do something we cant do something and without talking to us you will never know what we need that we cant currently do. Its like games using analytics to decide what people will buy and how much they are willing to spend if you set one price and never change it like most companys do all you are going to see is that the people playing the game will spend that price, it doesn't tell you that the other half have decided the pricing is stupid and wont pay it , as long as they are making a profit they dont care about the second half. You need to actually sit down and talk to people , be in the world often dont just schedule events where the majority will be fan boys and girls that show up and praise everything you do ....pop in to random places and talk to random people ask them what they like and dont like , ask them what they want , ask them what they need only then can you get a real feel of your player base.