How can we improve feature suggestions?

[LizFitbit]

Hi everyone! 

I am new to the Fitbit Community team and my role will focus specifically on improving the Feature Suggestions section of the community. I know a lot of you are passionate about improving products and want your ideas to be heard. I want to start by asking you how can we improve the feature suggestion section? What do you want to see? What would make it a better experience?

I know there will be lots of ideas, so please:

• Be as specific as you can
• Avoid restating specific product improvements that you want, focusing on ideas to improve the Feature Suggestions section only
• Understand that not all ideas will be implemented but I will be as transparent with you as I can.

This thread will be up for a couple of weeks after which it may be closed whilst I organize your ideas and report back to you.

Include at minimum what you want to see, why, and how it could look. I’ll kick us off!

eg. I think we could share more insight into Fitbit’s product development process and suggestion selection process. More clarity will help manage community expectations about what will happen with submitted ideas and when. For example, maybe a FAQs section, infographic or even a short video explaining more about this.

[Rich_Laue]

Can the FAQ be made a mandatory read before one can post.

The create new post only be assessable only from the search result page. Yes I really do like that idea.!!

Explain what is expected in a post.

Give examples of what we expect

Title 

Should be a claer summary of the suggestion being made

I've got a great idea << No

Add a timer to the Charge 2  << Very nice

Body

Be concise and to the point, Only one suggestion per post, Unless they atr intricately related. 

I find im using my countdown timer on the phone weekly, it would be nice to have one on my wrist.

Based on the popular request for a timer on the Blaze i believe others also would like it.

Don't post 300 words, yes we have one, to say "i would like a zoom in the app graphs".

FAQ should also explain general things that will be denied and why..

Ex:

We are not in the medicle field,

 Have tracker calling 911 when your heart stops, will be denied

The Forum

When doing a search the status of the post os not displayed. It would be helpfull to see the status of the hits. Was it implemented, declined, etc. 

[TornEdges]

My main suggestion is to create order within the Feature Suggestion section, by using a basic form.

1. Have a tick box to indicate which device they use.
2. Have a tick box to indicate whether their suggestion is for device use/display, app use/display or web use/display etc
3. If they select device, then an option to choose which feature their suggestion relates to or whether it is a new feature.
4. A space to type their suggestion (being as specific as possible).
5. A space to type why they think the idea is needed (their reasoning behind their idea).
6. A space for any other comments or to include an screen shot or other image.

[Nadialo]

Hi Liz,

It's nice that you have an opportunity to improve this forum section. However I have doubts that it's useful for Fitbit. Especially that your product and technical team has no idea of ROI as they cannot even distinguish critical features they have to implement in the first place to increase the profit.

Good luck anyways.

Cheers.

[LizFitbit]

Thanks all so far.

@Rich_Laue - Thanks for these ideas. We will soon be changing the UI to encourage all posters to search for existing ideas before posting a new one. I'm also putting together an FAQs and we'll be adding some more wording around how to optimize a feature suggestion title and body copy. I like your idea of having the idea status show in search results, that will require development but I'll look into this.

Hi @cas2047 - I'm sorry to hear about that but glad you're in touch with customer support. I'll move your post to a more appropriate place in the forums as this does not relate to the feature suggestion board and let the team know of your experience.

@Nadialo - Please feel free to be more specific - I'm not sure which critical features you're referring to. You can run a search in the feature forums to find the feature you're thinking of and comment/vote on it. If it doesn't exist, you're welcome to post a new suggestion. If you have any specific ideas of how we can improve this particular section, I'd be happy to hear them.

@TornEdges - Great ideas. I think what you're suggesting is basically a more detailed form users have to go through to post a suggestion. I have also thought about this and will look into how we can do this.

Thank you.

[cas2047]

OK Liz so you said in your reply that you moved my post about quality and honestly to a "more appropriate place in the forums", but now I can't find it. 

Can you point me to exactly where you moved my post to?  I'm sure you didn't just remove my post because you clearly said that you were moving it.  I'm confused, where on the forum do you deal with quality and honesty...???

Let me know and thanks so much for your help.

[LizFitbit]

Hi @cas2047, your post has been moved here. Thanks

[Amme]

Hi Liz

I would like to know what areas are being picked up and investigated by fitbit? What is deemed a priority. For example, getting Whatapp and Messenger notifications seems to be a re-occurring request/priority for customers however its not clear (from what I can see) whether this feedback is considered important to fitbit and being investigated. So, perhaps some kind of ranking or dashboard to see the top priority requests and fitbits response (doesn't need to be a yes to building the request, but at least a recognition that requests are being considered). Thanks

[LizFitbit]

Hi @Amme, that's a really great suggestion. Sounds like transparency from Fitbit on what we're researching/looking into would be useful?

Can you tell me more about how that's useful to you, so I fully understand? For example, is it so you can decide what tracker/product/brand to go with or is it so you can position your feature suggestion better, or just out of interest?

[MarSkis]

I would love a better way to search the forums.  I am in the forum for feature suggestions and I can select just the BLAZE, but I have to go through 31 pages of suggestions to see if what I am looking for has been asked already.  And if I just use the 'search' box I don't get any results even though I'm asking about battery and/or notifications which I'm sure have had some messages written about them.

[LizFitbit]

Hi @MarSkis thanks for posting. Hmm, if you use the search bar, I'd be really surprised if you didn't get any results for specific words like 'notifications'? I get hundreds of results. You can also use the 'advanced search' which you have to be logged in for: https://community.fitbit.com/t5/forums/searchpage/tab/message 

You can also tick the 'Feature Suggestions' under the 'type of post' drop down. Hopefully that works a bit better for you?

Thanks for persevering! We're actually hoping to make some changes to search in the next week, which will make it more visible.

Thanks

[Amme]

Hi Liz, it's a probably if case of all those things. For example, I have just bought a charge as used to have one and loved that I could get texts on the device. However, most of my messaging is now done via whatapp and when I bought the new Fitbit, I assumed it allowed whatapp as well (not the case). Knowing if Fitbit are considering this as a future feature would help in deciding my next device and whether I would recommend to other people. It's useful to know if Fitbit is really looking at and acting in the suggestions 

[LizFitbit]

Thanks @Amme - sounds like it's ultimately to help inform purchasing decisions and feel like we're listening to feature suggestions. That's useful feedback, thanks.

[LizFitbit]

Hi all,

Just an update that some of these ideas have been implemented. We've made a few changes to the feature suggestion boards, including:

1. Encouraging users to search before posting a new idea, so we can consolidate suggestions
2. More guidance around how to post a new idea
3. Important links in the top right
4. Explanations of status'

More coming soon, watch this space!

Thanks all.

[Voodoochildaro]

hi Liz!
you won't believe that but this is the coolest thing coming from FitBit so far and if I was in between the now IONIC and AW3 now I am definitely going to IONIC. Introducing yourself and your role are the pure evidence that you are going to listen to our feedback and that's the coolest new possible. I am totally IN!

we (at least, some of us :D) always felt FitBit team pretty defensive anytime we suggested some improvement.

I am pretty sure you all know what are the most requested things, and this is not the appropriate thread, but you definitely should make it easier and for example add a kind of "wishlist" we can vote.

I give for granted that you can track some of the most requested features - example: implement the compatibility with an external chest strap, or being able to reply txt on the watch - you could create a list of the things you know you can improve on your products, and give us the possibility to select the various options, maybe giving the possibility to add a feedback and let us articolate some requests.

Also, using keywords. 

you can "force" us to be more specifics and use some keywords in our feature suggestions, so you can track as better as possible our requests.

"chest strap" "water" "text reply" headphones" something like this.

In my opinion a kind of wishlist is the key.

just my 2 cents, 

thanks so much for this straight communication, wish you to be able to get rid of it, it's gonna be challenging I guess 🙂

best!

Max

[Mange_J]

There is at this point really no need updating the feature suggestion section of your forum. Your priorities should be actually reading it. Letting the devs chime in from time to time might hold the pitchforks away. Something that the mods and the other nonpaid superusers really can´t hold back much longer.

We need the devs talk to us, the impression now on this forum is that you (fitbit) couldn´t care less. It doesn´t take much effort finding threads where people are quite upset. Don´t you want to sell us another product? Are you really happy with just selling us one maybe two products? the word out here is... when it breaks I´m gone and I´m gonna tell everyone.

Keep your users happy and we will tell everyone to buy fitbits. Really... it´s a no brainer.

[LizFitbit]

Hi @Mange_J thanks for your reply. Our goal is to read every suggestion and there are a lot of them! I understand community frustration and that it can feel like a long time to process a new idea through to implementation (or not as the case may be). I believe there is still value in updating feature suggestions, to let members know that their idea has been read and where it lies in the product roadmap. Your idea of having fitbit developers more involved in feature suggestions is a great one! This is a goal of mine and it may take some time but is something that I will be working on over the coming months. Please know that developers and engineers do discuss community feature suggestions - the challenge is making that more evident to the community (without disclosing any proprietary information). Thank you for sharing your feedback with me.

@Voodoochildaro I'm glad you're happy to read this discussion and interested in the new Ionic! Thank you for your feedback. When you talk about a 'wishlist', do you mean Feature Suggestions that are regarded as viable by Fitbit that you can then vote on? For example, a list of the top 10 possibilities that community can then vote/comment on? That is an interesting idea. It would take time to scope out and assess those but it might feel more empowering to community members!

I like your idea about 'forcing' more specific suggestions and using keywords. That's something I'll be working on over the coming months as well. Thanks for sharing your thoughts with me.

[LizFitbit]

Hi all, thanks for your feedback. I'm going to close this thread for now as most suggestions are Feature Suggestions which I will move to the main board.

Thanks for all your feedback.