Creating Shared Understandings

YOU MAKE A product. You put it out for feedback. The potential responses simplified: feedback on it is good, bad, or your product doesn’t make sense.

It’s easy to jump to the positive feedback. It gives us immediate validation. But let’s wait. Let’s look at a more pressing need.

Your product is bad, here’s why. Important, of course, but there’s still another immediate priority: your product doesn’t make sense to me.

Okay, now we are getting to something fundamental.

Our audience doesn’t respond well to being confused. Confusion spawns negativity.

Educate first. Establish that base understanding. Then we can assess whether other negative feedback can be resolved through education. In most cases, the “bad” seems less severe for both parties.

If it isn’t addressed then, no problem, we turn our attention to resolving the bad feedback. But at least we are starting from a shared understanding with our audience.

Thanks for reading.