Quotes about Feedback

Commend, Don't Criticize

The trouble with most of us is that we'd rather be ruined by praise than saved by criticism.

The trouble with most of us is that we would rather be ruined by praise than saved by criticism

Direct, personal feedback really is the simplest and most effective form of motivation.

All too often in life, we see people do what we want them to do and we say nothing, assuming that the behavior has become natural for them, an easy standard.

As for building something users love, here are some general tips. Start by making something clean and simple that you would want to use yourself. Get a version 1.0 out fast, then continue to improve the software, listening closely to users as you do. The customer is always right, but different customers are right about different things; the least sophisticated users show you what you need to simplify and clarify, and the most sophisticated tell you what features you need to add.

A restaurant can afford to serve the occasional burnt dinner. But in technology, you cook one thing and that's what everyone eats. So any difference between what people want and what you deliver is multiplied. You please or annoy customers wholesale. The closer you can get to what they want, the more wealth you generate.

If a writer rewrites an essay, people who read the new version are unlikely to complain that their thoughts have been broken by some newly introduced incompatibility.

Users are a double-edged sword. They can help you improve your language, but they can also deter you from improving. So choose your users carefully, and be slow to grow their number. Having users is like optimization: the wise course is to delay it.

There is no urge so great as for one man to edit another man's work.

If all my bridge coach ever told me was that I was 'satisfactory, ' I would have no hope of ever getting better. How would I know who was the best? How would I know what I was doing differently?

Advice is offensive, it shows us that we are known to others as well as to ourselves.