Saturday, October 30, 2010

The illusion of listening to feedback

Yesterday, I got an email regarding IE9 feedback which I had posted on Connect. All I had requested is to keep existing features intact for power users who don't want a "simplified" reduced functionality experience. Microsoft seems to have assumed new levels of EPIC FAIL. Here's what their response says:
"Thank you for your feedback. At this time we do not plan on fixing this issue. Your feedback is very important to us, and it helps us improve the quality of Internet Explorer. Unfortunately, we are currently unable to address this particular feedback. This request doesn't match with our design goal of reduced concepts. We continue to welcome more feedback, so please don't hesitate to report other ways that we can improve Internet Explorer."

WTF! Are they trying to contradict each statement with the next one? What sort of weasel wording is this? My feedback as a user is important yet they can do nothing about it. They have design goals of reduced functionality!!! And then they expect me to still continue to give them more feedback in the vain hope that maybe they will listen to their users and make changes! I won't even consider giving any more feedback no this shit product that takes away more useful functionality that whatever irrelevant features it adds (irrelevant because without core features like progress bar, download speed and XP support, this browser is anyways useless). Goodbye IE. It was nice using you from the Internet Jumpstart Kit (IE 1.0) days.

Microsoft has done the same with Windows 7. They are very successful in creating the illusion that they actually listen to our feedback and change the product accordingly. But in reality, our feedback all falls on deaf ears. It's a lost cause now. I don't know which OS to go with. As long as Windows XP, Office 2003, IE8, WMP10 are there, it won't be a problem. Once their support expires, I will have to consider Mac OS X Lion. But doesn't Apple do the same? (Linux is out of the question due to poor design and usability compared to the commercial platforms). How long will I be stuck on Windows XP? (not that it's obsolete by any means) but I make a genuine effort to like the newer crap coming out of Microsoft but simply can't. I will not accept reduced functionality or customizability.

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