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Ask Slashdot: How To Get Non-Developers To Send Meaningful Bug Reports?
DemonGenius writes "I'm in the midst of a major rollout of one of our primary internal applications at work and we have a beta version available for all the staff to use. The problem here is most of the staff don't know how to send reports meaningful enough to get us devs started on solving their problems without constant back and forth correspondence that wastes both developer time and theirs. Some common examples are: screenshots of the YSOD that don't include the page URL, scaled screenshots that are unreadable, the complaint that wants to be a bug report but is still just a complaint, etc. From the user's perspective, they just send an email, but that email registers in our tracking system. Any thoughts on how to get the non-devs sending us descriptive and/or meaningful reports? Does anyone here have an efficient and user-friendly bug tracking system/policy/standard at their workplace? How does it work?"
Make your software send it...
You can not teach the world, so why try?
A more pressing question is how to get developers to stop ignoring bug reports.
You have to coach them. They don't really understand what you need.
When I get a email from someone about a bug, I go meet with them. I ask them all the questions I think may be relevant. What were they doing, how were they doing it. Were there any extra small steps or actions that jump out. Sometimes I explain why I'm asking certain questions and relate them back to previous bugs or issues.
I think what you need is someone to be the go between. Get a tester to receive those emails, recreate the issue, then file a bug report. Don't allow the end user to file bug reports directly into your system. It will mess with your tracking data. A high number of worthless bug reports closed quickly may look good in the reports but does not help anyone.
Im a gamer, not a grammer major. This post is full of spelling and grammer mistakes.
> If it's a C++ app, then sure, having a built-in crash reporting mechanism shouldn't be that hard to build in
That's precisely what I do. The default exception handling routine sends an email to me with the app, version, username, machine id, error description, call stack, and any useful data that that I saw fit to include while coding. It has saved me mountains of pain over the years, and also fuels my reputation as the all-seeing eye.
Dyolf Knip
Just make sure you ask a zillion questions about what version of video driver they have and if their path info is set correctly. You can never have too much information. Pop up long hexidecimal numbers numbers they have to enter, but can't copy or enter untill they close the popup. Make information that is only available to the developers mandatory.
I use Problem Steps Recorder on Windows 7 to report problems to my IT department. If you have a problem which occurs when you do a certain thing, it can be a great tool. Especially on web-based software or forms.
Just type "PSR" into a command prompt or Start->run. It's a great tool.
Even those who arrange and design shrubberies are under considerable economic stress at this period in history.
> If it's a C++ app, then sure, having a built-in crash reporting mechanism shouldn't be that hard to build in
That's precisely what I do. The default exception handling routine sends an email to me with the app, version, username, machine id, error description, call stack, and any useful data that that I saw fit to include while coding. It has saved me mountains of pain over the years, and also fuels my reputation as the all-seeing eye.
I do much the same but include credit card information, mother's maiden name and social security number.