Why you need direct feedback in your app

August 24, 2009 |  Posted By : megan  In : Developer Community

Developers know that one of the best tools for improving software is feedback. It’s critical to know exactly what your users like and dislike about your software so that you can properly focus your development efforts on bug fixes and feature enhancements that matter to your users.

On the web, feedback links are ubiquitous and the same should be true with mobile applications. Mobclix decided from the beginning that direct feedback was one of a developer’s most important tools for improving their application, so that’s why we built in qualitative (comments) and quantitative (ratings) feedback mechanisms in our iPhone library. With this feature, developers can effortlessly add a feedback form into their application and allow their users to send feedback without leaving the application. Whether you’re using Mobclix or not, this is a great way to maximize user feedback.

You may ask, but I already get comments via iTunes, so why do I need anything else? It’s true, iPhone applications are able to get ratings and comments via iTunes, but the problem with iTunes is that the experience is disconnected. Users must leave what they are doing and go specifically to iTunes to leave comments which requires extra effort and thus makes it less likely the user will follow through on leaving their feedback. The other time users are asked to provide feedback is when they are deleting your app,  this is not necessarily the feedback you want. By providing a feedback mechanism directly in your application you make it as easy as possible for your users to get in touch with you, increasing the likelihood that you’ll get the feedback.

Just as an example of how valuable this can be, the application GasBag, which has been using Mobclix since it was launched currently shows a total of 340 comments in iTunes yet has received 3700 comments directly via their integrated comment form. They got 10 times as many comments just by putting a simple comment form in the application.

You can read more about the Mobclix feedback module on the developers information page, or you can just go ahead and sign-up with Mobclix and add it to your application in a few minutes.

Written and by Mobclix’s top ratings expert and developer Allen Gilliland.