Groundspeak´s To-Do List

[+Joe Tramp]

There is allegedly a to-do list that comprises many of potential changes. Could you make it public, e.g. in a form of questionnaire? You would get some feed-back what is more/less desirable ... and I (hopefully as well as many others) would get familiar with the "product" before extending my premium membership

Edited March 19, 2014 by Joe Tramp

[Jayme H]

Hey there!

 

HQ values the opinions of the community and we know that there are a lot of improvements that we can make to the phone apps/website to improve the user experience. We have definitely been listening to the forums lately, as conversations have become more constructive and helpful. Feedback has been taken (and will continue to be taken) into meetings regarding various improvements that are important to the community. Although change can be a slow progression in a company of our size, we are cachers too and care a great deal about this game.

 

To answer your initial question...yes, indeed, there is an alleged "to-do" list. In past years we made the to-do list public in the forums. Unfortunately, this created frustration within the community and we ultimately decided to remove it. The thoughtful, constructive direction that the forums have been headed lately may invite some form of feedback options in the future. For now, please know that HQ Lackeys have been paying attention to opinions that we've been hearing in discussions. Please take part...we value constructive feedback from all experience levels, in all areas of the game.

[Moun10Bike]

Let me chime in to say that while there is a definite "to-do" list, not everything - or even most things - listed on it will be implemented on any known timetable. Rather, the list serves as a pool of ideas to draw from as management makes plans for the company. Those items that fit the vision and longer-term goals will get added when they make sense, while others must sit until they mesh with current initiatives. For these reasons, we do not make it public; doing that simply leads to people asking, "when will feature X be ready?" We instead listen to discussion here in the forums, add popular items that come up that are not already on the list, and campaign for those that we feel are most important when planning sessions take place.

 

We used to have a feedback site for people to propose ideas, but that was shut down a couple of years ago for most of the reasons I gave above: people thought anything that got a lot of votes should be immediately placed at the top of the queue for implementation, and the number of ideas coming in greatly exceeded the resources we had to address them.

[+Walts Hunting]

I am going with the Lackeys on this on. It would do nothing but stir things up needlessly and create heated conversations about the order which would have no positive effect.

[+suchanana]

woohoo, a chance for an addition on the to-do list?...well, just can't pass up on suchanopportunity...

 

i received an email notice today for the Geocaching Blog to Write a Comment – Nominees for the February Geocacher of the Month... with mobile apps for instant geocaching,

and global current events being instantaneous, this backlog of an award seems a bit old school...

 

methinks at this time of March, the votes and comments for the April Geocacher of the Month would be more appropriate...

 

geez,how about Eric Schudiske putting on a challenge event at Groundspeak HQ to speed up the process a skosh?

[+The A-Team]

We used to have a feedback site for people to propose ideas, but that was shut down a couple of years ago for most of the reasons I gave above: people thought anything that got a lot of votes should be immediately placed at the top of the queue for implementation, and the number of ideas coming in greatly exceeded the resources we had to address them.

While I completely agree that the UserVoice system led to unrealistic expectations and a public to-do list would lead to similar problems, there was one good thing about it: it showed what the members really wanted. A good example of where this worked is Geocaching Challenges. "Bring back virtuals" was easily the highest voted idea on UserVoice, and because of that Groundspeak created Challenges. Sure, the implementation left a lot to be desired and it eventually got abandoned, but at least Groundspeak recognized the desires of the membership and tried to provide a solution. It would be nice if the management at Groundspeak took notice of the suggestions and fixes that are highly-requested here in the forums and used that to help guide where to focus development. Based on the changes to the site over the last couple of years, this doesn't seem to have been happening.

[+tozainamboku]

there was one good thing about it: it showed what the members really wanted.

 

It showed which members shouted the loudest. It's not particularly clear that most members wanted to bring back virtuals, only that is got the most votes of the features what were listed. If I recall there were also a lot of votes for a suggestion to not bring back virtuals.

 

I think your comment is more that it forced Groundspeak to react to the people who shouted loudest. Without a system that counts votes like this, it is easier for them to "ignore" certain requests. I would think they still have a good idea of who is shouting loudest both from this forum and from other ways people are able to request features.

 

I recall before any feedback site, when Groundspeak disabled the Google Earth KML file because their data showed only about 200 people regularly used the feature and it put a big load on the system when people were using it. There was alot of screaming in the forums and that motivated a Groundspeak developer to find ways to make the feature more efficient. My guess is that if people want something bad enough, Groundspeak will find out whether or not they have a site that tallies votes.

 

Of course the feedback site also had an indication of which ideas were under consideration, which had been rejected, which had reached the planning or development stage, and which had been implemented. Perhaps what is lacking is that we don't always see this here. A suggestion in this forum might be marked SUBMITTED to show it has been added to Groundspeak's tracking database (i.e. To Do List); but we don't see the progress as it moves to planning or development, or when the issue is closed becasue they've released a new feature.