When Listening Hurts - Yahoo TV Gets an Earful

So Yahoo TV launches its new look, and gets an earful.  What is the net?  It is better to get negative feedback fast and out in the open than it is to hide problems.  And it didn't have to go the way it did.

According to the blognoscenti at TechCrunch and others, Yahoo! is getting negative ratings for the redesign and credit for being both open to feedback (through their own blog). Kudos to Yahoo for having the cajones to open a public forum for feedback and taking their lumps.  And nice work from Sal Taylor Kidd, the Director of Product Management, for engaging in the conversation.

What caught my eye in the discussion was a simple post on the Yahoo blog in defense of Sal and the team:

"I have to say I’m amazed and dismayed by the tone of these posts. “This sucks!”, “I hate it!”, “Cheap, worthless stunt.” I’m sorry, but would you people talk to the people at Yahoo like this if you met them in person? Of course not."
                            Comment by Charlie Wood - Dec 1st, 2006 at 1:26 pm

A perfect gem of wisdom that captures exactly what we have been saying here at The Site is Dead.  Your customers will not tell you what you most like to hear if you just ask their opinion.  Unless you are willing to put it out there, you will be living in a focus-group fantasy world that is not a mirror image of our own.

One of the unerring truths of digital products is that you always know exactly what you should have built 10 seconds after you launch (or run out of budget...).  From where I stand, this means that you have two choice: Launch what you have and gird for criticism or Never make changes.

Given that the second option is untenable, does it mean that we all have to go through what Sal and Yahoo TV did? Will public scorn be added to the list of indignities that plague the position of Product Manager? Probably.  But it doesn't have to be this bad.

Charlie Wood is right.  People will not be as honest, and you won't learn what you need.  But how did Yahoo get in a position where they were not doing testing?  Why did the new interface require a damn the torpedoes launch?  Why couldn't they introduce some of the interactivity to evaluate how it affected the user experience gradually?

Whether the new Yahoo TV site is good or bad is not my bailiwick.  From my standpoint, if more people engage with the site, if more can find what they want, then it is a success, and if not, it isn't.

But other companies who are contemplating introducing more interactivity to their sites should take heed - you will likely get grief, and Yahoo is a good model for openness.  But you can avoid some of it by selectively testing your ideas, either through Beta or live testing, to understand how it will affect your visitors.