Encouraging feedback from users

you said it most eloquently

Perhaps if there was a better mechanism for reporting on the state of apps, then they might get more feedback. Forums are much abused IMHO. I'm not suggesting a full-blown bug-tracker but even polls or rating systems could be utilized to solicit positive and negative feedback.

I think this is a good suggestion. The lack of feedback is something lots of devs (including me) were/are having problems with.

There's nothing wrong with the idea, but I don't think it's likely to help very much, as most people will still not comment about it, and (b) what in my opinion is needed more is a full technical review. Merely an "it works" really doesn't guarantee portability at all, often there will be things which aren't obvious which still prevent it from being really portable. And generating even a partial technical review (say a regshot report) takes time which I don't think most will give.

It might be worth while trying this as an experiment on a few posts, and see what happens about it. I might be wildly wrong (in fact, I hope so, but don't expect so).

Unless most users can leave feedback in about 5 clicks or less, most won't bother. And if you expect them to actually type something, then forget about it.

It's well documented that about 80% of a website's user base just lurks, not actively participating, another 15% minimally participates (clicking voting buttons/polls), and the remaining 5% percentage actually contributes content.

So at best, you have to assume that you can get about 20% response rate, and this assumes that you're using tools that those minimally active users are apt to using.

And by abuse of forums, I'm not talking about spamming and nonsensical posts, I'm talking about misuse of purpose. Similar to how people use Email as a journal, an archive, an address book, a knowledge base, to-do list and otherwise all encompassing application... it's for sending messages!

I agree that more feedback is good, and I also agree that I'm just as guilty as the next person at not giving enough. My excuse, valid or not, and typical excuse of most people is that I don't have enough time, so I'm more likely to give feedback if I can do so in the most unobtrusive way.

Regshot snapshots, and detailed information like that should only be necessary in the cases where something is not working as expected. Those can be dealt with on a case by case basis (in the forums!).

I can tell you that in my case, when I download a beta of an app, while I will happily watch for and report any bugs that I see (and indeed I have done on occasion in the past), I don't generally have the time to run a full analysis of whether it passes the portability requirements or not, so I tend to steer away from saying "works for me" when I've not actually tested the portable nature of the app.

Maybe I should post more often, but I've always thought that if I had nothing more than "doesn't crash on windows version blah, but no idea how portable it is" to say, then it wasn't really helpful.

If the devs would like to get more relatively-information-free replies, then I'll start posting them.

solanus - We already have too many things waiting to be invented.
The forums should be able to do the job.

While I agree with the above statement, the fact is that "it is a lot of work to sign in to a forum, find the correct thread and post a comment". While I don't believe this, the truth is, it's a sad reality for many.

IMHO the best way to get active feedback is to have a rating mechanism built into the launcher. This could update something, somewhere, where people interested (developers) could review the comments/ratings. It could also be a way for potential users to review an app by checking the ratings and comments before they download it.

I know that this would take a lot of work and thought, and may in the end not be a viable solution. But I also think that this is the only real way that you will get the majority of people to comment, rate or submit bugs reports for an app. Simply because it does not require much effort.

... Just my 2 cents

I think this will require some work on portable launcher, but how about this:

1. When the user starts beta version of the app it pings the tracking URL. This should be optional and clearly stated that will not send any personal information and allow the user to disable if he/she don't want to participate. I believe that most users like me will happily participate. That way the developer will know how much use his application gets.

2. When the beta application is closed it opens a small dialog with simple text field where I can type comment and submit it to the tracking URL or original forum thread from where the app was downloaded. This should be optional also and easy to disable if the user chooses. This could be tricky to implement in the real world once the security gets involved.

Personally I keep eye on beta forum by RSS reader and the problem is that once I read the first post and don't comment there is no easy way to go back to that post and to keep eye on the progress of the beta app.
I would like to help, but I have really limited time so as result I am failing to provide my feedback as I should.

For all PortableApps developers thank you very much!

I've read the topic thus far (that is, every post above this one) and I believe the easiest route to take is a sticky. Call it "Please read before downloading". Start with the caveats of using portable beta apps, and explain how in exchange for getting to use portable apps pre-release, the authors request (but do not demand) that you test their apps and report back, whether positive or negative. Then you tell them how to do so. I've tried to use RegShot, for example, and only embarrassed myself when I made an absurdly large snapshot file. So a quick tutorial on that would be in order. And the comments that the sticky receives will help fine-tune it to everybody's needs.

I would like to help as well, but like someone else said, Horus has done a great job of posting the regshot logs (and someone, I think usually Chris? always comes in behind them and says "that looks clean" or something).

Something what crossed my mind a while ago, and still need to figure if it's really possible.

What about 'Anonymous Usage Statistics', just get the launcher (in development) to ask if the user was satisfied or not (and open some sort of window to write down why he wasn't satisfied)!
This info if the portable application was actually used and the user feedback, could already be wanted info for the PA developer !

This all should be possible with the inetc.dll plug-in, and a server who gathers the information.

Mind you, probably all a lot of work again, and personally I've got no experience with this and not really any time to spend on it.

Just wanted to give another idea to a really bad issue of the development tests !