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points by throw-qqqqq 2 days ago | 0 comments

I would be careful with trusting the answers to those questions.

People remember things to be more positive than they were. This is an established bias in human psychology

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosy_retrospection

You're right. Better keep to not asking and just weirdly spy on them, concluding the emergency recovery buttons are never used, and remove them.

[–] throw-qqqqq 2 days ago

I think that’s a non sequitur…

[–] titzer 2 days ago

I'm saying I wish they did more user studies where they actually asked people what they wanted the software to do, instead of lacing it with creepy telemetry that tells them that less-often-used functionality is...less-often-used, and that they would stop removing said less-often-used functionality.

[–] throw-qqqqq 2 days ago

Ah okay, then I’m sorry.

I read your response as “okay then, if we can’t ask that question, we have to spy” etc. which I think did not follow from my post - I misunderstood you, thanks for clarifying.

[–] rlue 2 days ago

Fair point; to correct for this bias, ask n people to rate their experience with software reliability, then wait five years and do it again. The larger your n, the more you correct for individual variation (via the Law of Large Numbers)

[–] throw-qqqqq 2 days ago

1) Asking five years apart only confirms if the bias is stable/changing. It doesn’t correct anything.

2) Asking more people gives you an answer closer to the ‘truth’ (i.e. the true population mean; the mean answer if you asked ‘everyone’). It lowers sample error, not directional bias.