Getting Feedback

According to Kristian Klausen my app has been installed and updated tens of thousands of times. I have received absolutely no feedback about it. Phew! What a relief, no complaints! My app is perfect!

Seriously though, this is a bit of a worry, as it does matter to me what users think. They might have started it once, been completely mystified about what it was for or how to use it, then forgotten all about it. I have done just that with many other applications.

I have put a lot of effort into trying to make the app easy to use - I wrote it for my own use. I have also tried to make it easy to use for other users, but I realise that it won’t be as obvious to them how it works as it is to me. I have no idea if anyone has found a bug, or what they would like to change or to see in future versions.

I had an email address on an early version and the latest has an entry for “Webpage” in “About”, this is just the GitHub repository though and bugs/comments are made by clicking the “Issues” tab - not at all easy to use.

What are the best options for gathering user feedback? An email address? A webpage? (I’m not keen on building or paying for a website.) Something like a subgroup/subtopic of a forum seems like a good idea. (Any suggestions?) How about Flathub having something on Flathub Discourse?

Hey,

specifically on the flathub build, there have been some issues here Issues · flathub/ca._0ldsk00l.Nestopia · GitHub

Looking at the app, I would start looking at Upstream Metadata | AppStream | AppStream 0.16 and add whatever you have right now (some of these have been “recently” added)

Github/gitlab does work, but might mean, that some users don’t have a login (yet). But with the above, you can link directly to issues (or discussions), if you want to.

“specifically on the flathub build” I had great support with building the app initially, but I haven’t had any problems with building it since and your link appears to relate to an application I’ve never heard of, so I’m not sure what the relevance of the link is.

“looking at the app” I hadn’t referred to a specific app. I was looking more for a suggestion of what sort of platform I could use to offer support rather than how to link to it.

Sorry, the link you provided above, defaults to that app if you click it.

It’s just the default app which shows on Kristian Klausen’s page for showing the number of Flatpak downloads :).

I’ve now got a link to GitHub for reporting bugs and to Crowdin for improving my translations.

Something in the news recently made me think of using Discord/Slack/Reddit/Trello. I have some thoughts on them, but would appreciate comments on which would be most suitable - or suggestions of other platforms.

I was told that GitHub had a Discussion page. My app now has a link to it.

There have been no responses on the GitHub Discussions page. I think it’s a bit too intimidating.
Any further suggestions? There are many options, this is on Discourse for example, but $50 a month is too much for what I expect - a few comments a week about a free app. ChatGPT suggested a few but was rather out-of-date. I don’t really use social media so I haven’t really any idea.

I think github discussions is not too intimidating, but you could open up a matrix channel for people who prefer direct messages.

Is this what you mean? https://forums.matrixfans.net/ or perhaps this https://www.matrixgames.com/forums/ ?

No Matrix.org - Try Matrix

The home page starts with

Matrix defines a set of open APIs for decentralised communication, suitable for securely publishing, persisting and subscribing to data over a global open federation of servers…

This leaves me completely mystified, but I get the impression that:

  • It’s basically something like Internet Relay Chat (IRC).
  • I would have to provide a server.
  • Users would have to install a client.

I would like something like this Discourse forum where:

  • The interface is familiar - like a forum.
  • I wouldn’t have to provide another service.
  • All the user has to do is open an account, they don’t need to install any software.
  • The messages are persistent like in a forum rather than transitory like with IRC.

I think Matrix is probably rather too powerful, sophisticated and complicated for what I want, so I’ll have to keep looking.

2 and 3 are solved by matrix - but if you don’t want direct communication, that’s not helping

That’s good for simplicity.

Those are requirements.

Do you mean that I don’t want IRC? Yes, as I’m not going to be monitoring it 24/7 and I wouldn’t expect anyone else to be present, or if they were, to be able to answer questions. Any that I missed would be lost. It’s really not appropriate for my small app.

I don’t think it would be suitable.

Proboards looks suitable, so I’ll give it try.