Collecting feedback from beginners

[joshwcomeau]

Collecting feedback from beginners

[Haroenv]

I know some people in boot camps, will ask to try out and for feedback

[bennygenel]

I have added Guppy project to up-for-grabs couple of days ago. This is not exactly what you are looking for but might convert to some junior developer traction.

[superhawk610]

It may be worth looking into something like doorbell.io to collect feedback from within the app. When I was first getting started coding, I remember being very scared of GitHub, partially because I didn't know much about it and partially for fear of saying something ignorant without realizing it. Some sort of private feedback forum would be a good way to help assuage this issue to some degree.

I've seen other projects have success with some sort of separate forum/message board, maybe linked to prominently within the app?

[melanieseltzer]

Not sure if anyone else reads r/webdev on Reddit, but I frequently see a lot of beginners on there. Perhaps we should think about posting and asking for feedback on Showoff Saturday (the day they allow you to post personal projects)?

@superhawk610 that is an interesting idea, would it be a popup or would it be launched from some sort of user action?

[superhawk610]

Oh wow, they've got over 237,000 subscribers, definitely seems like a good audience.

I can see it being either. Perhaps have the user fill out a brief optional survey on first app launch and then display a popup if they indicate that they're a newer developer? It could also be a small tab in the bottom corner that says "Need Help?" or something like that..

[joshwcomeau]

I know some people in boot camps, will ask to try out and for feedback

Yay! Thanks @Haroenv

I have added Guppy project to up-for-grabs couple of days ago. This is not exactly what you are looking for but might convert to some junior developer traction.

Cool! Thanks @bennygenel

It may be worth looking into something like doorbell.io to collect feedback from within the app. When I was first getting started coding, I remember being very scared of GitHub, partially because I didn't know much about it and partially for fear of saying something ignorant without realizing it. Some sort of private feedback forum would be a good way to help assuage this issue to some degree.

I've seen other projects have success with some sort of separate forum/message board, maybe linked to prominently within the app?

Super good point @superhawk610; right now all avenues for feedback are public, and beginners may be reticent to admit that they don't understand something.

For the forum/message board, I wonder if Gitter could work for that, or if we should move to something like Spectrum. I chose Gitter haphazardly, but I like Spectrum since it's Google-indexed, more of a message board than a real-time chat (although it kinda works for both).

Not sure if anyone else reads r/webdev on Reddit, but I frequently see a lot of beginners on there. Perhaps we should think about posting and asking for feedback on Showoff Saturday (the day they allow you to post personal projects)?

Yeah! Awesome idea @melanieseltzer! I think that once we have something that we feel is reasonable for beginners to use without guidance, we should definitely try and promote it there.

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Touching on that last point, I don't know if Guppy is ready for a wide audience yet - for one thing, Windows support is critical for new devs, as I'm betting most of them don't have a mac. Also, we don't really have docs, a bunch of stuff isn't really explained, etc.

I think @Haroenv's idea of getting 1:1 feedback from bootcamp attendees he knows is a great approach, since it allows us collaborators to walk them through it, answer any questions they have (and note what those questions are, since they're things the product should answer).

I work out of a WeWork and there's a coding bootcamp there. I'll see if I can swing by sometime and have a mini focus group with the attendees.

[joshwcomeau]

We're definitely getting closer to the point that I think it's ready for beginner usage :)

The big thing missing is a "getting started" guide. I'll create a new issue for this, and we can track it there.