Wishbox: Listen to your users and let them point out your shortcomings

Gee, Facebook is going to be inundated with complaints if people get hold of this feedback app. Not that there is much really wrong with Facebook's layout but they do change it quite often and people do love to complain, don't they? Basically, Wishbox is a tool that allows your visitors to make complaints about your website layout with screenshot annotations so they can vent and point out exactly what they don't like about it.

Why would you want to let people complain about your website, you might well ask. It's said that 2% of any audience will complain about something so why bother giving them a platform to whinge from? Well, the bottom line is this. They reckon one in six people with a gripe will complain directly to your face but the other 5 will tell their friends...who will tell their friends...and who will, in turn, tell their friends. So your original 2% could well be closer to 10% and then you've got a problem. More often than not, unsolicited user feedback isn’t super helpful. Sometimes though, the userbase really does know what it wants but even then, it can be hard for them to express it properly. That’s where Wishbox comes in. By combining on-the-fly screenshots with an in-browser annotations tool Wishbox allows even your most technically inept users to send visual feedback straight to your inbox by placing a small pop-out “Send Feedback” tab in a pre-determined place near the edge of the screen. When clicked, Wishbox snaps a screenshot of your current browser window, throws it into an embedded annotations tool and lets users get their mark on before shipping things your way.

It would be easy to ignore any complaints about a change in your website but you do that at your peril in these tough economic times. If people can be bothered to make their mark by telling you your site sucks then it would be good to do something about it...or least appear to. Wishbox is a little slow loading but works beautifully when it gets going. At the moment it is a free app but will probably have a small monthly charge further on down the line. Installation is just a matter of sending your email and plugging in JavaScript.

So don't let those complainers spoil your day. Do something about it. They could well be right.