Whats in the Works at Stack Overflow: Improving Feedback for All Users

Hi, I'm the product manager leading the development of Stack Overflow's flagship product, public Q&A. Last week, I shared an update on our blog about what we're working on and why.

Building Stack Overflow in a way that better meets the needs of more and more developers is important to me and my team. I'm cross-posting an abbreviated version here because I want to hear your feedback for us.

Where we're at today

Last year, we kicked off an initiative to make Stack Overflow more welcoming. After launching a new Code of Conduct, an improved question asking experience, and several other changes, we spoke to many Stack Overflow users to hear more about their personal experiences using the site. Through these conversations, we heard that the limitations of the Q&A system continue to create the very environment we set out to discourage. People who need help with coding problems feel attacked when their questions are closed or downvoted, while those curating site content feel blamed for doing what the system has asked them to do.

Its simply not enough for us to ask people to be nice or change their behavior when the software that underlies everyones interactions doesnt facilitate this. Thats why were looking at ways to revitalize the way the core Q&A system works.

What we're working on now

Today, my team's focus is on these initiatives:

1. How feedback is delivered by the system
2. Addressing issues with our commenting system
3. Making a single question asking experience work for everyone

Improving feedback

As Sara, our Director of Public Q&A, noted in her recent blog post, its hard not to take feedback personally when its piled on, no matter how constructive it is. Unfortunately, this overwhelming pile-on is exactly what users who ask an imperfect question are confronted with.

The first way we're improving the feedback loop among our users is through a redesign of post notices. If youve come across a duplicate question or closed question, youve probably seen a post notice. These are the pale yellow informational banners that sometimes appear on questions. For people who ask questions today, if your question is closed, feedback that is directed toward you privately is shared publicly with anyone who views your question.

Heres what our holistic redesign of all post notices will prioritize:

• Delivering improved, private feedback to post authors
• Not putting users who curate content on the spot
• Giving actionable, understandable information for the vast majority of public viewers

While working on building our refresh of post notices, were also doing discovery on ways to make our question close workflows and review queues better facilitate feedback and content curation for seasoned moderators, technology experts, and new question-askers alike.

They told me not to read the comments

It probably comes as a surprise to no one that the comments section on Stack Overflow doesnt always serve its original purpose (facilitating clarifying questions to improve question quality). Comments can be distracting, outright harmful, pure spam, and everything in between.

We encourage people to flag content that doesnt belong, and our moderators do incredible work to review everything. But theres a lot of opportunity to reduce the burden for moderators and users who flag inappropriate content in ways that make using Stack Overflow more pleasant for everyone.

For example, some of the things were exploring right now:

• Better distinguishing the Answer and Comment actions (due to a high volume of helpful Not an answer flags indicating problems with the interface).
• Ways to reduce the number of unhelpful comments that are likely to get removed in the first place.

Improved question-asking guidance for everyone

Several months ago, we launched the Ask Question Wizard on Stack Overflow. The new experience defaults users with low reputation to use a guided mode to formulate their questions. So far, were pleased with how its helping users ask better questions and as a result have a better experience on the site. In fact, were so pleased that our next iteration is focused on incorporating aspects of the guided mode into the question-asking form for everyone.

Were still in early stages, but some of the changes were working on so far include:

• Upfront guidance for first-time question-askers
• Setting expectations for what happens after asking a question
• Improved how-to-ask guidance while drafting a question
• Making it easier to improve question quality by consolidating many dozens of validation messages into a single review interface

Were excited to begin working on these changes because it gives us an opportunity to create a better user experience for everyone. More and more, we hope to look for ways to simplify our platform to seamlessly and intuitively meet the needs of all users who come to Stack Overflow to find and share knowledge.

What do you think?

Millions and millions of users come to Stack Overflow each month and rely on and contribute to the site and community in so many unique ways. Stack Overflow wouldnt be what it is without contributions from developers like you.

What do you think of this direction? What would make it easier for you to use and participate on Stack Overflow? What are your biggest frustrations today?