Eliciting emotion

http://www.gabrielweinberg.com/blog/2012/05/eliciting-emotion.html

by llambda • 14 years ago

63 38 14 years ago

Really like duck duck go and was impressed when I first heard about it on an interview podcast with the founder. Unsure why anyone would hold negative comments about a free tool that offers a nice alternative to google.

Keep up the good work Gabriel. There are many who appreciate the product.

crusso3• 14 years ago

I think DDG is fantastic for what it is and what it's trying to accomplish.

That said, I looked through those comments that Gabriel linked to and I find the comment of:

> which collectively are the most vitriolic I've seen under a single story (about us)

... to be the wrong way to look at that thread.

If I were working on DDG, I'd be thrilled with all that great criticism. Some of it could have been said more gently. Some of it ignores that DDG has a different mission than Google. Overall, though, it's a raw look into what some people are thinking -- even if it's a bit rough and tumble.

Gabriel, keep up the great work. Take that criticism and use it for what it's worth and forget about what's left.

epi0Bauqu4• 14 years ago

Thanks, I am! I feed on feedback, and this feedback is as good as any for that purpose. Maybe vitriolic was too strong a word?

crusso3• 14 years ago

I don't know. In relative terms it's probably true since HN is usually very positive about your work.

Sometimes, though, being in an echo chamber isn't what is best for your ideas or your company. It's good to step away from the DDG Fanbois and see what the contrarians are thinking.

rscale2• 14 years ago

I expected something harsher given the title of the post. I agreed with virtually everything tferris wrote.

tferris took time, energy and effort to elaborate on some of the things that caused him to view ddg as an inferior product. I don't think that's "vitriol", I think it's constructive criticism. When I think of vitriol, I think of people being mean for meanness's sake (which sadly does happen on HN sometimes).

I have much broader concerns about DDG, but if Gabriel thought what tferris wrote is vitriolic, there's virtually no chance he'd appreciate my point of view.

epi0Bauqu4• 14 years ago

On the contrary, I'd love your point of view. Please share it.

rscale2• 14 years ago

The good news is that my most serious concern is, to a large degree, inside baseball.

My most serious concern is that I can't quite bring myself to believe that a VC-backed company, founded by the creator of a classmates.com style company actually cares about privacy in any meaningful way. My perception of your values erodes any potential trust; it feels like a gimmick to get innovators and early adopters to use it. This also destroys your most obvious value proposition.

My weaker concerns are centered more around design (a lot of awkward and modestly confusing pieces that others have identified), and results that were never noticeably better than Google for me, but were sometimes noticeably worse.

I really hope you take my stated concerns in the right spirit. I know it's not nice to have some stranger you've never met say he doesn't trust you because of his perception of your past work, and his concerns about likely business models. That's why I waited until after the holiday to respond, so at least there wouldn't be tons of people reading the thread when I said it.

All the best.

lclarkmichalek• 14 years ago

There were comments in that thread that were less constructive. This one for example, strikes me as particularly aimless in its hatred: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4021828.

epi0Bauqu4• 14 years ago

Yes, that is the comment that really tipped me over into writing the post.

seiji2• 14 years ago

I don't think that's "vitriol", I think it's constructive criticism. if Gabriel thought what tferris wrote is vitriolic, there's virtually no chance he'd appreciate my point of view.

The problem is: I can't see you. Without visual cues, poor writing sounds violent. Quadruply so when only using bulleted lists. (Hint: email someone and list their faults in a bulleted list. Then have them do the same to you.) Would you say to Gabriel's face, "You have a crappy logo. And your domain name is too long. Plus, I could sleaze a four letter domain name out from under somebody else. Why can't you? You must be pretty incompetent. Your product is awkward and you don't even live in san francisco. Why won't you just go away?"

That's what the comments sounded like to me.

You have no right to be heard. Constructive criticism is criticism without temper and a slight acknowledgement you appreciate being listened to at all: "Hey Gabe, I was thinking about duckduckgo and had some feedback about things that feel off to me. Maybe you'll find my opinions useful. I think the duck logo is kinda strange. It looks too duck-rapey to me. Your center aligned results are a little quirky (everybody else is 'more left'), but I like the inline favicons. I used to think the auto-wikipedia results were distracting, but google started polluting its results with much worse things now, so you were ahead of the curve there. The name always trips me up too -- maybe spinning off an alternatively-branded domain name could make it better? At least your name isn't as tragic as blekko. Thanks for listening."

sunir• 14 years ago

True, that's why we must assume good faith when reading what others write. One will be right more than one is wrong and learn more than one would ever otherwise.

http://meatballwiki.org/wiki/AssumeGoodFaith

seiji2• 14 years ago

The tferris comment (is it the tferris? It's been very active recently.) is basically what Gabriel pointed out -- an instant inverse reaction to the post's theme.

In our digital isolation, it's natural. We want to scream "They are wrong and I am right! Look at me!" When we see someone else getting attention, we want to divert the stream of eyeballs and admiration to ourselves.

It's exactly "Why wasn't I consulted?" syndrome (http://www.ftrain.com/wwic.html). People see words in front of them, and think they are being consulted and prompted to respond. Here's a hint: you don't have to say anything.

People feel ignored when they see an opinion they don't believe getting attention. Nobody likes being ignored. To counteract the feeling of being ignored, let's just be doubly blunt and vitriolic so you give me more attention instead of the existing roving opinion. Fuck your logo and your little dog too! (and your engineering, where you live, and your obtuse hairstyle!) My opinions are clearly superior. I win.

The commenter suddenly assumes the role of CEO and decides to pass judgment on a third party. What the heck? It's simultaneously insane and natural (it must be natural -- see every youtube comment ever).

Humanity needs a firmware upgrade. Until then, act less negatively, don't inject vapid personal opinions ("This is cool!!!" "this is so dumb"), and help people who may not understand get up to speed.

naner• 14 years ago

No, it is not the 4HWW Tim Ferriss. He spells his last name differently and is not a programmer (look at tferris's submission history).

nanijoe• 14 years ago

People who disagree with a submission are more likely to respond to it than people who agree..it's human nature. Its not malicious, it's not specific to HN or the tech industry.

mattmanser• 14 years ago

Personally I don't think it's that at all.

A lot of us here really want ddg to succeed. I honestly want an alternative to google, their privacy views are antithetic to mine. But I don't use it because it's just not up to it.

We want to help, we want to say why we're not switching. And tferris' post sums it up perfectly. I doubt he's saying it out of spite or a want to jump in as a nay sayer. He's saying it out of frustration that ddg seems to be adrift in a calm sea.

northbranch2• 14 years ago

This post really hit home, as I was dealing with some negative comments on a reddit ad for my new site last night:

http://www.reddit.com/comments/tzfhy/the_hippest_mens_socks_...

I think there is a great takeaway here that negative feedback is often useful, but you should not blindly try to please everyone. For us, comments like that will certainly help refine our pricing and marketing strategies. Trying to convert that person into a customer, however, would be a waste of energy and focus.

cjy• 14 years ago

The socks look like they are very nice quality, but given the bright designs, you had expect some comments. The negative comments are probably a plus on net as they drive more people to look at the ad. How did the advertising work out for you? Any sales? I advertised on Reddit and lots of traffic but no sales.

northbranch2• 14 years ago

We've had a similar experience. It was a good experiment, but our marketing is driven more by trying to connect with individuals and turn them into ambassadors. Rather than blanket the web with ads, I try to find influential people who I think will love our products, and send them an unsolicited sample. Besides, what's more fun than mailing out free polka dot socks?!

rfreytag• 14 years ago

Gabe,

Your commitment to feedback is what has locked in DDG as my search engine. I toyed with it for while and noticed something - made a comment - and got a response that very day that seemed very personal, accepting, and considered.

That response and the ones from the 5 or so other suggestions I have made to DDG has only increased my interest in using and contributing to "my" search engine.

I use other search engines on occasion but only when "my" search engine doesn't have what I seek - which is to say rarely.

Keep up the personal touches and voice. It works. And thanks (said with some emotion).

tlogan• 14 years ago

Please please listen to people like tferris and fchollet: they might look like jerk and but that makes them an excellent people to listen. They will not say typical crap which I see on HN: "congratulation", "great team", "very smart people", "the smartest people I ever met", "I think DDG is fantastic", ...

Don't dismiss comments because they are not written like essays and they are negative.

And here are my points:

- DuckDuckGo is stupid name for search engine.

- DuckDuckGo has the worst interface that any search engine in the market.

- DuckDuckGo does not handle very well integration from different sources. For example, if for some reason your company does not have the exactly same twitter handle as a company name - DDG might just merge some other twitter handle with your search (the fact that company website links to 'twitter' handle for that company is kinda ignored - hey names are important). Amazingly Google search does it right....

- And of course, DuckDuckGo search sucks - at least it needs to have something to differentiate.

- I really really want DDG to succeed.

- My English sucks.

fghh45sdfhr3• 14 years ago

Subtle troll, is subtle.

And of course, DuckDuckGo search sucks.

Unless you describe how it sucks, this is just a personal opinion.

sequoia3• 14 years ago

preface: I have ddg as my default search engine on all browsers on all computers I use and evangelize for them regularly.

DuckDuckGo SERPs DO suck. If you've used the service much, I don't think this requires a more detailed description but since you're asking I'll try to be more specific:

* The top links frequently link to content unrelated to what I'm looking for (Jasmine tea rather than the Jasmine testing framework e.g.). How google does this I don't know but rarely do they get it wrong in the same way

* It frequently takes more time/clicks for me to find what I'm looking for searching on a generic DDG search than google. (of course bang searches mean I'm only sometimes using generic/plain search on DDG.)

* The results on google are frequently just better. This is to say even if I find something that sort of answers my question on the list on DDG, there will be a better answer, higher, on google.

Basically, if you are searching the name of a company or something unmistakably clear, ddg performs just as well as google, but when you get into longer queries on more obscure subjects, the gap in performance between ddg & ggl widens really fast.

Is it clear what's meant by DDG results sucking? I don't think that's the nicest way to put it but as a long time DDG user I won't dispute the assertion.

billpatrianakos• 14 years ago

The thing about criticism, especially negative criticism, is that you actually shouldn't always listen to it. Everyone's got their complaints but not all criticism is created equal. You have to strike a balance between pleasing your customer and executing on your vision. Chasing down and fixing everyone's problems can be counterproductive. Sometimes I feel like people who create something are just a little too open to criticism. Its important to be able to filter out the irrelevant kind and focus on the kind that matters.

I also feel like people who have criticisms often feel like they have a right to be heard. Not always. Some people criticize to feel important under the guise of trying to be helpful. Those people are the ones I ignore at all costs.

liljimmytables• 14 years ago

Everyone seems to be going on about bad webdesign, but with the exception of the blue-on-red in the search bar at the top I find the choice of colours uplifting. It's a personal taste thing I guess, but DDG isn't going to score points for homogeneity so they might as well stick with it.

Where DDG really scores over Google is that it is cruft-free. It's not inviting me to look at maps, images, my G+ account, it's not got sidebars, and it doesn't break up the search to add in image/shopping results. My brain is working optimally on the task of scanning the results, I am <s>fitter</s>, happier and more productive. That's DDG's killer feature for me. It's not even an original feature, Google used to have it but they got rid. In short, DDG isn't a Google killer, but it's a great companion.

sequoia3• 14 years ago

"There is a natural tendency to want to contradict the story, and do it first."

Bang on the head. Gabriel just described most top comments on HN threads. :)

SkyMarshal2• 14 years ago

That could also just be because people who agree with the post don't have anything to add and don't comment.

csmeder• 14 years ago

Great article!

   "Update2: I feel I've been a bit misinterpreted. I love
   feedback of all kinds, including negative. And I am 
   listening to and appreciate it all. What I was trying to 
   get at is for other people (who have less thick skins), 
   it  can really get them down. But it shouldn't since if 
   they're eliciting emotion that's great."

Yeah, I'm kind of sad you had to include this update. I felt the article was poignantly written. I felt your insights were clear. I wonder if the reason you were misinterpreted by some is that these people had already made up their mind about what the article was about before reading it.

As always, thanks for taking the time to describe and share your insights!

mark_l_watson• 14 years ago

Sorry for being off topic, but do people really pick a search engine and stick with it long term? I will use a search engine for a few days to a week, rotate to another. Google gets A little over half of my search business, with the rest split between DuckDuckGo, Bing, and Yippy (used to be Clusty). There is zero overhead to switch the default search engine in a browser.

Eliciting emotion

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