#User feedback software

[whomst-am-i]

If there's someone from samsung searching for user responses to the new update:

I hate it pls take it back i don't want quick access to an ai I don't want a boring oval for a battery I don't want my notifications so big I don't want the settings to be so hard to swipe to I don't want all my widgets to look different TAKE IT BACK PLS

[feedspace]

What Are Testimonials and Why Do They Matter?

Testimonials are endorsements or reviews from customers who have used your product or service. They offer potential buyers a glimpse into the experience of others, providing social proof that your offerings deliver on their promises.

Why Testimonials Work:

Build Trust: Customers are more likely to believe other customers than advertising claims.

Showcase Credibility: Positive feedback validates the quality of your product or service.

Improve Conversion Rates: Displaying testimonials can nudge hesitant buyers toward making a purchase.

Enhance SEO: Authentic reviews can increase engagement and contribute to higher rankings on search engines.

Different Formats of Testimonials

When it comes to showcasing testimonials, variety is key. Here are some popular formats:

1. Text Testimonials

The classic form of testimonials, these include written reviews or quotes from satisfied customers. These are easy to collect and can be displayed on your website’s homepage, product pages, or a dedicated testimonial page.

2. Video Testimonials

Video testimonials are an engaging way to add authenticity and emotion to customer feedback. By using video testimonial software, you can streamline the collection, editing, and publishing of these powerful endorsements. Hearing real customers share their stories helps establish a deeper connection with your audience.

3. Audio Testimonials

Audio feedback, though less common, can be a unique way to highlight customer stories, adding a personal and authentic touch to your testimonials while providing an option for camera-shy customers to share their experiences comfortably.

How to Effectively Showcase Testimonials

Collecting testimonials is just the first step—showcasing them effectively is what makes the difference. Here are some tips:

1. Create a Testimonial Page

By creating a dedicated page, such as a "Testimonial Wall of Love," you can showcase authentic reviews from multiple platforms like Google, Facebook, and Trustpilot. This page acts as a central hub for social proof and adds credibility to your brand.

2. Embed Testimonials on Landing Pages

Integrate testimonials directly into your landing pages to make a strong first impression. Pair customer feedback with relevant CTAs to encourage action.

3. Use Testimonials in Ads and Campaigns

Include snippets of testimonials in your ad creatives to add a layer of trust and validation.

4. Highlight Testimonials in Email Marketing

Feature customer testimonials in your newsletters or promotional emails to engage existing and potential customers.

Collecting High-Quality Testimonials

Collecting meaningful and authentic testimonials requires a proactive approach. Here’s how you can get started:

Ask at the Right Time: Reach out to customers when their experience with your product or service is still fresh.

Use Testimonial Software: Simplify the process with tools designed for collecting and managing testimonials.

Provide a Template: Make it easy for customers by giving them a structure or prompt for their feedback.

Incentivize Feedback: Offer small perks, such as discounts or freebies, in exchange for detailed testimonials.

Encourage Variety: Ask for feedback in multiple formats, including text, video, and audio.

Real-Life Examples of Testimonial Success

SaaS Platforms: Companies like Slack and HubSpot highlight customer stories on their websites to demonstrate the real-world impact of their software.

E-Commerce Brands: Amazon’s product pages prominently feature customer reviews, making it a trusted marketplace.

Local Businesses: Positive reviews on Google My Business profiles have helped countless small businesses thrive.

Conclusion

Testimonials are more than just words on a page—they’re powerful endorsements that can make or break a buyer’s decision. By collecting and showcasing authentic feedback in creative ways via video testimonial software, you can build trust, enhance credibility, and drive more conversions. Start leveraging testimonials today and watch your brand’s reputation soar.

If you’re ready to elevate your marketing with testimonials, let’s get started!

[saasproductreviewsworld]

Why SaaS Reviews Are Crucial

If you’re running a SaaS business, then a review website should be a crucial part of your SaaS marketing strategy.

Online reviews are critical. If you find yourself neglecting this fact, just remember that around 93% of consumers claim that reviews they found on the internet influenced their decision to buy something. It’s also interesting to note that over 90% of consumers aged 18-34 say that they trust online reviews just as much as personal recommendations. These numbers show that online reviews are essential for a SaaS product.

[trackolap]

How to Analyze User Feedback Following Product Enhancement?

Have you launched your product successfully on the market? If yes, it’s a moment of pride for the team, but remember, your job doesn’t end here. In a culture of continuous product development, companies need to evaluate the results or effectiveness of their end product in the market and customers’ lives and, based on this feedback and insights, consider restructuring further improvements. While this sounds like a nerve-wracking process, you can seamlessly evaluate varied aspects using features of the user feedback analysis software

Evaluating varied aspects after making product improvements or launching solutions is yet the beginning of another phase in the product development funnel. Product managers must focus on assessing a product’s performance in the real world and its value with real people, for which you need to consider collecting feedback through product feedback software. You can make informed decisions to improve further in another feedback loop based on the feedback received.

In addition, launching a product isn’t an end goal for your marketing and product development success. Evaluating varied KPIs includes listening to consumers, identifying and iterating potential aspects from user feedback, and implementing robust solutions through customer analytics software.

Do you want to know more about the evaluation process after a product launch? This blog will walk you through essential aspects to simplify your analyzing process through a customer feedback analysis platform.

Why Must You Evaluate User Feedback After Launching a Product?

Launching a product is a significant achievement for every business, but ensuring how impactful it has turned out for customers and understanding its value in the market is equally important. To help you understand the significance of evaluation post-product launch, we have listed a few reasons why you need to measure effectiveness through user feedback analysis software.

1. Fosters User-driven Improvements

Evaluating results or collecting user feedback through product feedback software after launching the end product enables product managers to get insights and reactions from consumers in real-time. This approach aids in identifying loopholes in your product and usability issues and determining how users utilize your product to better position it in further strategies.

2. Benefit from Competitive Edge

In the fast-paced and constantly evolving business landscape, staying competitive and standing out from competitors is essential. Evaluating user feedback post-launch allows managers to stay ahead of the curve, as it provides insightful data to address issues and enhance products immediately by using customer analytics software.

3. Make Data-driven Decisions

Eliminate the guesswork in your product development process. Instead, analyze thoroughly the profit value of your product in the market, and improve products by assessing the reviews, complaints, and opinions shared by your customers across diverse platforms. This approach aids in making informed decisions, allocating resources to make improvements within the time frame, enhancing varied features, and more.

4. Enables Crafting Innovative Solutions

As the market evolves, the preferences, needs, expectations, and likes of customers also change over time. Along with identifying issues, evaluating feedback post-launch through product feedback software aids in adapting varied changes and re-aligning strategies when required. Based on these factors, businesses can stay innovative and deliver top-notch solutions to seamlessly satisfy consumers’ expectations.

5. Enhances Customer Loyalty and Retention Rates

By constantly listening to and validating customers’ suggestions and user feedback and addressing their complaints or needs, product managers can seamlessly build stronger relationships with customers in the long term. This approach aids in customer loyalty, maximizes satisfaction, and boosts customer retention rates.

You May also Like: Capture, Analyze, and Implement With Customer Feedback

How to Evaluate Feedback and More Aspects Post-Product Launch?

Analyzing certain aspects after launching the product is important for product managers to identify potential issues with technical factors or usability errors or to determine whether consumers are satisfied with the end product. To help you optimize this process via a customer feedback analysis platform, we are listing a few methods that you must consider.

1. Collect and Listen to Unbiased Feedback

When you begin developing a product, the product development team often assumes certain factors, such as why there is a need for specific solutions in the market, outlining the target audience, and more. After launching the same product, the product manager’s job is to evaluate these assumptions. Collecting and analyzing user feedback may seem complicated, primarily once your product is published publicly. However, a centralized platform like user feedback analysis software can help.

You can consider collecting feedback by using these steps:

Inviting customers to a centralized user feedback platform and asking them to leave feedback

Integrating varied communication platforms to feedback management tools to analyze varied factors into one software

Utilize data received on social media and review platforms and collaborate with customer support teams to understand potential issues.

Collect quantitative feedback through surveys, 1:1 interviews, online forums, and more to identify where you are lacking behind.

2. Incorporate Cross-functional Collaboration

A product manager alone cannot identify all the issues. Collaborating with cross teams like the product development team, quality assurance team, UI/UX design team, customer support team, and more can help uncover certain insights or identify varied areas for improvement in minimal time. This process sounds very obvious, but it is essential. Collecting feedback through user feedback analysis software can be beneficial, but there are chances that even with feedback, you may miss out on certain aspects. Team members from different teams can help in analyzing the product seamlessly.

3. Categorize and Prioritize Practical Feedback

As a next step, consider categorizing or grouping varied user feedback based on specific factors like customer support-based issues, usability issues, technical issues of the product, pricing-related issues, conversion issues, customer churn, and more. Sometimes, you realize the reason behind the lack in your project ROI isn’t the product errors but other factors that can affect your profit-based goals and brand identity. However, leveraging features of the customer feedback analysis platform can simplify categorizing varied feedback based on the aspects mentioned above and using custom templates. Product managers can analyze the effectiveness of the project through live statistics or in-depth reports.

4. Conduct Competitor’s Analysis

While collecting feedback through user feedback analysis platform is essential throughout varied stages of product development, don’t overlook the strategies implied by your competitors and assess their products. Remember, along with user needs, determining market demand and trends to maximize your revenue is equally important in implementing accurate strategies and pricing aspects. Furthermore, after launching your product, consider evaluating your product in comparison with your competitors with specific factors like product features, user satisfaction, usability aspects, performance, and more. Conduct a SWOT analysis based on this assessment to enhance your USP and address weak factors.

5. Review the Performance of your Product

After the product launch, consider reviewing its performance. You can analyze it through the A/B testing method, which can segregate varied features, the color theme of the software, device compatibility, and more factors. Your focus should be on recognizing the factors where your product excels and highlighting factors for improvement. You can align your user’s feedback with these test results to make informed and data-driven decisions for the next feedback loop.

6. Evaluate Feedback Data

Based on the User feedback received, look for repetitive patterns, trends, and sentiments in consumer complaints, suggestions, and reviews. While categorizing these feedbacks can help you outline specific issues, utilizing robust features of Antrika like Feedback evaluation, product managers can get customized analysis, separate boards or layouts, and user statistics.

These features enable businesses to evaluate diverse factors and dig deeper to measure the project’s effectiveness. Plus, product managers can customize reports based on the diverse teams, share them with them to conduct open discussions, and strategize for implementing further improvements.

Analyze Project Success with Antrika

Analyzing varied aspects after launching a product is very important. To maintain brand identity, satisfy consumer needs, and maintain customer loyalty, businesses need to work on constant improvements. This can be done only by collecting feedback on a regular basis and evaluating market and competition trends to foster overall business growth.

If you want to explore the features of user feedback analysis software, then get in touch with us today!

[mostlysignssomeportents]

How lock-in hurts design

Berliners: Otherland has added a second date (Jan 28) for my book-talk after the first one sold out - book now!

If you've ever read about design, you've probably encountered the idea of "paving the desire path." A "desire path" is an erosion path created by people departing from the official walkway and taking their own route. The story goes that smart campus planners don't fight the desire paths laid down by students; they pave them, formalizing the route that their constituents have voted for with their feet.

Desire paths aren't always great (Wikipedia notes that "desire paths sometimes cut through sensitive habitats and exclusion zones, threatening wildlife and park security"), but in the context of design, a desire path is a way that users communicate with designers, creating a feedback loop between those two groups. The designers make a product, the users use it in ways that surprise the designer, and the designer integrates all that into a new revision of the product.

This method is widely heralded as a means of "co-innovating" between users and companies. Designers who practice the method are lauded for their humility, their willingness to learn from their users. Tech history is strewn with examples of successful paved desire-paths.

Take John Deere. While today the company is notorious for its war on its customers (via its opposition to right to repair), Deere was once a leader in co-innovation, dispatching roving field engineers to visit farms and learn how farmers had modified their tractors. The best of these modifications would then be worked into the next round of tractor designs, in a virtuous cycle:

https://securityledger.com/2019/03/opinion-my-grandfathers-john-deere-would-support-our-right-to-repair/

But this pattern is even more pronounced in the digital world, because it's much easier to update a digital service than it is to update all the tractors in the field, especially if that service is cloud-based, meaning you can modify the back-end everyone is instantly updated. The most celebrated example of this co-creation is Twitter, whose users created a host of its core features.

Retweets, for example, were a user creation. Users who saw something they liked on the service would type "RT" and paste the text and the link into a new tweet composition window. Same for quote-tweets: users copied the URL for a tweet and pasted it in below their own commentary. Twitter designers observed this user innovation and formalized it, turning it into part of Twitter's core feature-set.

Companies are obsessed with discovering digital desire paths. They pay fortunes for analytics software to produce maps of how their users interact with their services, run focus groups, even embed sneaky screen-recording software into their web-pages:

https://www.wired.com/story/the-dark-side-of-replay-sessions-that-record-your-every-move-online/

This relentless surveillance of users is pursued in the name of making things better for them: let us spy on you and we'll figure out where your pain-points and friction are coming from, and remove those. We all win!

But this impulse is a world apart from the humility and respect implied by co-innovation. The constant, nonconsensual observation of users has more to do with controlling users than learning from them.

That is, after all, the ethos of modern technology: the more control a company can exert over its users ,the more value it can transfer from those users to its shareholders. That's the key to enshittification, the ubiquitous platform decay that has degraded virtually all the technology we use, making it worse every day:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/02/19/twiddler/

When you are seeking to control users, the desire paths they create are all too frequently a means to wrestling control back from you. Take advertising: every time a service makes its ads more obnoxious and invasive, it creates an incentive for its users to search for "how do I install an ad-blocker":

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/07/adblocking-how-about-nah

More than half of all web-users have installed ad-blockers. It's the largest consumer boycott in human history:

https://doc.searls.com/2023/11/11/how-is-the-worlds-biggest-boycott-doing/

But zero app users have installed ad-blockers, because reverse-engineering an app requires that you bypass its encryption, triggering liability under Section 1201 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. This law provides for a $500,000 fine and a 5-year prison sentence for "circumvention" of access controls:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/01/12/youre-holding-it-wrong/#if-dishwashers-were-iphones

Beyond that, modifying an app creates liability under copyright, trademark, patent, trade secrets, noncompete, nondisclosure and so on. It's what Jay Freeman calls "felony contempt of business model":

https://locusmag.com/2020/09/cory-doctorow-ip/

This is why services are so horny to drive you to install their app rather using their websites: they are trying to get you to do something that, given your druthers, you would prefer not to do. They want to force you to exit through the gift shop, you want to carve a desire path straight to the parking lot. Apps let them mobilize the law to literally criminalize those desire paths.

An app is just a web-page wrapped in enough IP to make it a felony to block ads in it (or do anything else that wrestles value back from a company). Apps are web-pages where everything not forbidden is mandatory.

Seen in this light, an app is a way to wage war on desire paths, to abandon the cooperative model for co-innovation in favor of the adversarial model of user control and extraction.

Corporate apologists like to claim that the proliferation of apps proves that users like them. Neoliberal economists love the idea that business as usual represents a "revealed preference." This is an intellectually unserious tautology: "you do this, so you must like it":

https://boingboing.net/2024/01/22/hp-ceo-says-customers-are-a-bad-investment-unless-they-can-be-made-to-buy-companys-drm-ink-cartridges.html

Calling an action where no alternatives are permissible a "preference" or a "choice" is a cheap trick – especially when considered against the "preferences" that reveal themselves when a real choice is possible. Take commercial surveillance: when Apple gave Ios users a choice about being spied on – a one-click opt of of app-based surveillance – 96% of users choice no spying:

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2021/05/96-of-us-users-opt-out-of-app-tracking-in-ios-14-5-analytics-find/

But then Apple started spying on those very same users that had opted out of spying by Facebook and other Apple competitors:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/11/14/luxury-surveillance/#liar-liar

Neoclassical economists aren't just obsessed with revealed preferences – they also love to bandy about the idea of "moral hazard": economic arrangements that tempt people to be dishonest. This is typically applied to the public ("consumers" in the contemptuous parlance of econospeak). But apps are pure moral hazard – for corporations. The ability to prohibit desire paths – and literally imprison rivals who help your users thwart those prohibitions – is too tempting for companies to resist.

The fact that the majority of web users block ads reveals a strong preference for not being spied on ("users just want relevant ads" is such an obvious lie that doesn't merit any serious discussion):

https://www.iccl.ie/news/82-of-the-irish-public-wants-big-techs-toxic-algorithms-switched-off/

Giant companies attained their scale by learning from their users, not by thwarting them. The person using technology always knows something about what they need to do and how they want to do it that the designers can never anticipate. This is especially true of people who are unlike those designers – people who live on the other side of the world, or the other side of the economic divide, or whose bodies don't work the way that the designers' bodies do:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/10/20/benevolent-dictators/#felony-contempt-of-business-model

Apps – and other technologies that are locked down so their users can be locked in – are the height of technological arrogance. They embody a belief that users are to be told, not heard. If a user wants to do something that the designer didn't anticipate, that's the user's fault:

https://www.wired.com/2010/06/iphone-4-holding-it-wrong/

Corporate enthusiasm for prohibiting you from reconfiguring the tools you use to suit your needs is a declaration of the end of history. "Sure," John Deere execs say, "we once learned from farmers by observing how they modified their tractors. But today's farmers are so much stupider and we are so much smarter that we have nothing to learn from them anymore."

Spying on your users to control them is a poor substitute asking your users their permission to learn from them. Without technological self-determination, preferences can't be revealed. Without the right to seize the means of computation, the desire paths never emerge, leaving designers in the dark about what users really want.

Our policymakers swear loyalty to "innovation" but when corporations ask for the right to decide who can innovate and how, they fall all over themselves to create laws that let companies punish users for the crime of contempt of business-model.

I'm Kickstarting the audiobook for The Bezzle, the sequel to Red Team Blues, narrated by @wilwheaton! You can pre-order the audiobook and ebook, DRM free, as well as the hardcover, signed or unsigned. There's also bundles with Red Team Blues in ebook, audio or paperback.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/01/24/everything-not-mandatory/#is-prohibited

Image: Belem (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Desire_path_%2819811581366%29.jpg

CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/deed.en

[nanowrimo]

Write Smarter, Not Harder: 5 Ways to Conquer Chaotic Writing

Every year, we’re lucky to have great sponsors for our nonprofit events. ButterDocs, a 2023 NaNoWriMo sponsor, is an all-in-one writing app built for productivity, collaboration, and a more joyful writing experience. Today, the folks at ButterDocs share a few tips on organizing your writing to meet your goals:

NaNoWriMo is about to start, and you're champing at the bit to get to 50,000 words. But that's no easy feat! Because life doesn't stop when NaNoWriMo starts.

You're still going to have climb a mountain of chaos to reach your goal: Chaos like not being able to find your notes and outlines when you need them since they're scattered across multiple apps, or the constant lure of internet distractions.

And of course, once NaNoWriMo ends, the writing process continues. You'll need to get feedback, be able to actually easily take advantage of that feedback, and make revisions (especially if your ultimate goal isn't just a rough draft, but a polished novel).

Here are five tips from ButterDocs to beat the chaos and make your writing workflow less work and more flow.

1. Know what you're about to do.

We know you want to start maximizing your word count from Day One, but you'll thank yourself on Day Twenty if you lay the groundwork for yourself. Take some time to organize your research, develop your characters, lay out your major plot points, and consider your themes.

You don't need to buy and learn advanced plotting software. A digital whiteboard can be as intuitive as pinning index cards to a cork board.

2. Write in the best environment for you.

You're about to spend a lot of time writing. It's a good idea to get comfortable.

Think about what environment you write best in. Do you need the hubbub and energy of a busy coffee shop? Or the serenity of a cozy nook?

Once you find the right place, put the same effort into finding a writing app you'll actually enjoy writing in.

3. Stay in your writing flow.

Focus and dedication during NaNoWriMo is the whole ball game. Lose either, and your chances of hitting 50,000 words are harder.

Whatever your NaNoWriMo goals are, give yourself the best chances to succeed with tools that will help you get and stay focused. A timer, word counter, and goal tracker will help you with timed writing sprints and hitting daily writing goals.

4. Recover from distractions.

Distractions will happen. Chaotic writing aside, the human brain wants to wander for dopamine. And life inevitably gets in the way.

What's important is how you recover. Don't let one distraction or missed writing day snowball into another and another. Give yourself tools that help you get back on track. A simple notification to come back to your writing can be a big help.

5. Pull others in to help you move forward.

You may be participating in NaNoWriMo as an individual, but know this: you are not alone.

You have the entire NaNoWriMo community, among many other writing communities and groups you can turn to for any genre of writing.

When you feel stuck or need feedback on a draft, don't be afraid to ask for help. Just be sure to invite people into a writing app where you have control over the collaboration.

ButterDocs Early Access + NaNoWriMo Resources

Conquer chaotic writing by using a writing app built for exactly that. With ButterDocs, you can plan, write, share, and edit your writing all in one place, without the chaos. It's by the team that built Arc Studio, a leading screenwriting app with hundreds of thousands of users.

ButterDocs launches today in early access and we'd love to invite you to check it out for NaNoWriMo.

All NaNoWriMo participants can receive a free year of ButterDocs if you sign up by December 1st, 2023.

We're running a free online event on October 25th for everyone who signs up: "Getting (and Staying) in Your Creative Writing Zone During NaNoWriMo." with Grant Faulkner (Executive Director of NaNoWrimo), Matt Trinetti (founder of London Writers' Salon), and Allison Trowbridge (founder of CopperBooks). If you can't make it, we'll email ButterDocs users the recording afterward.

Visit https://butterdocs.com/NaNoWriMo to learn more about ButterDocs, claim your free account, and enter an exclusive sweepstakes giveaway for NaNoWriMo participants!

[antrika]

Feedback Management Tools: Your Secret to Understanding User Persona

Do you feel overwhelmed by mountains of user feedback received from diverse resources? Or do you find yourself confused, wondering, “ Where is this feedback coming from?” Well, you’re not alone! Many businesses struggle to understand valuable user input and translate it into actionable insights for planning strategy. The key secret is determining your audience and their user persona through a feedback management tool.

Imagine having a clear idea of your ideal target audience and having the ability to understand their needs, frustrations, desires, and expectations. Imagine capturing feedback directly from users through surveys, 1:1 interviews, social media platforms, or centralized user feedback software. This will streamline the process and enable managers to categorize varied feedback and analyze actionable insights based on users��� personas to make informed decisions.

Sounds interesting? Let’s dig in deeper and understand how a feedback management tool can help streamline the product development cycle. In this guide, we will explore ways to identify key user personas, leverage customer feedback analytics to collect data and transform insights into actionable strategies to drive better results.

What is a User Persona? And How It Can Streamline Product Management?

User personas serve as a core aspect of understanding the target audience. These are not real people but rather fictional representations based on accurate data and research. User personas go beyond basic demographics, delving deeper to capture the user’s behavioral patterns, motivations, goals, and frustrations.

User personas act as a guiding point for accurate decision-making. When you face varied challenges with product development dilemmas, your team can refer to the personas and ask themselves, “Would this feature benefit our core users?” This ensures that resources are directed towards functionalities that address genuine user needs.

Furthermore, user personas foster alignment within the product team. By presenting a comprehensive vision of the ideal user, personas create a shared purpose and ensure everyone is working towards the same goal — building a product that resonates with the target audience.

Why Do You Need User Persona via Feedback Management Tool?

User personas are a core element for product teams to determine what users want from your business? How do they need a solution to be solved? And how teams can build personal connections with customers via user feedback software and make the entire development process scalable and flexible.

1. Clarifies How Users Need Solution

The first step towards understanding your audience is to visualize your users using your product. Now, think about what they say, do, or how they would utilize the product.

Accurate user personas will eliminate guesswork and identify their needs, ensuring you deliver an enhanced user experience by leveraging insightful data collected through user feedback software. For instance, if you have an app that cab drivers use at night, adding a dark mode-based theme with better UX will improve their experience and boost usability and user satisfaction.

Moreover, product teams must look for answers to questions such as “When your product is utilized,” “How can you add value to a user’s life with a certain solution,” and more. To simplify the process, you can engage with users through centralized platforms like feedback management tools, personalized surveys, interviews, and more to collect realistic and accurate information.

2. Helps you Adapt Agile and User-Specific Approaches

When you take an agile development approach, you are proactive about adopting changing trends, demands, and market dynamics. Incorporating a user-specific approach means developing a product that revolves around the user’s requirements rather than the company’s objective or vision alone.

In addition, user personas identified through customer feedback analytics outline tangible problems your users deal with and tell you how their needs evolve. This will allow you to offer personalized solutions to your existing users and other targeted audiences irrespective of their changing needs and expectations.

To make sure your user personas assist in developing agile and user-friendly solutions with an iterative process and consistently updated user persona data through optimized documentation from product management app.

3. Engage with Your Users

In building a user persona through a feedback management tool, you will connect with your users on a personal level, which ultimately assists in delivering customized solutions. This proactive engagement with your users empowers you to test your strategy or idea, ensuring that it aligns with your user persona’s expectations and solves their problems.

Challenges to Create User Personas via Feedback Management Tool

Creating a user persona can be an overwhelming procedure as it involves constantly communicating with users, internal product teams, and external stakeholders. When this communication is not aligned through user feedback software, the SaaS product development process can be stressful or cause emerging mistakes.

To help you streamline the development process through the product management app, let us explore a few common challenges you may face while creating user personas and how you can overcome them significantly.

1. Creating Personal Bias Based User Persona

Even experienced product managers can fall victim to assumptions about their users. Your own experiences can unconsciously bias your overall approach. Fostering a data-driven approach through a streamlined product management app can prevent you from assuming varied aspects.

By constantly updating your documentation and streamlining your team members about the changes in a systematic approach, you can leverage diverse perspectives and ensure product decisions are grounded in user needs, not personal beliefs.

2. Building Diverse User Personas

If you focus on creating too many user personas, it might be a sign that you are perplexed about your product’s offerings or target audience. Also, a complex user persona will make your development procedure more complicated, and your product will fail or be undesirable for your users.

Instead, focus on the core functionalities of your product through a centralized product management app and keep your focus on crafting only 3–5 personas. Before creating a new persona, ensure you have already acquired a product market fit for your existing users.

3. Neglecting Negative User Persona

A negative persona is a fictional representation of someone who does not need your product. Creating these personas will help you avoid targeting the wrong audience or prioritizing an inappropriate set of problems.

When you conduct market research and personalized customer surveys, you may come across people who share similar aspects with your ideal audience, such as occupation, age, and more aspects. However, this doesn’t mean they are your target audience, as their problem may significantly differ. Consider including these factors in your negative user personas

How to Create User Personas with Feedback Management Tool?

1. Ask the Right Set of Questions

Building a user persona involves asking the right questions to learn more about your users, their problems, and your business’s expectations. To begin with, you can ask a few simple questions such as:

1. What type of outcome are you expecting?

2. What frustrates you in the current solution?

3. What does your current workflow look like?

4. Why do you need a specific solution?

2. Implement Data-driven Approach

Every user persona in each persona group represents average users. This means product managers must ensure that every detail of the user persona is presented with accurate data. Prioritizing user data or inputs through feedback management tools will help your product development teams eliminate biased decisions and focus on real problems.

Apart from surveys and interview data, you must seek data from metrics like product usage (especially in the case of SaaS products), session length, average features utilized, and more.

3. Identify Feedback Patterns

Analyze the feedback you receive from Antriak’s centralized feedback management tool and other resources. Then, look out for recurring themes, frustrations, complaints, and praises. This will help you highlight user needs, pain points, and preferred features. For instance, if many users complain about a specific feature’s complexity, it might indicate a need for the “Overwhelmed User” persona. Or it will indicate urgency in solving certain features immediately.

4. Segment Feedback by User Type

Filter out data and segment your users with specific demographics. Then, consider categorizing varied feedback into user groups. Analyze common factors within each group to understand their unique perspectives. This helps you define distinct user personas, like a “Tech-Savvy Manager” who desires advanced features. Segmentation through user feedback software will also help you simplify making the right decisions for the development process.

5. Integrate Valuable Feedback with Persona Profiles

Final Thought on Feedback Management Tool

Incorporating a feedback management tool can help to identify key user personas, & optimize product management, and drive continuous improvement of your product. By systematically collecting, analyzing, and acting on user feedback, you can make data-driven decisions to enhance the user experience, prioritize feature development, and ultimately grow your business.

If you want to learn more about user persona and product management processes, contact our experts today!

[mariacallous]

On Saturday, an Associated Press investigation revealed that OpenAI's Whisper transcription tool creates fabricated text in medical and business settings despite warnings against such use. The AP interviewed more than 12 software engineers, developers, and researchers who found the model regularly invents text that speakers never said, a phenomenon often called a “confabulation” or “hallucination” in the AI field.

Upon its release in 2022, OpenAI claimed that Whisper approached “human level robustness” in audio transcription accuracy. However, a University of Michigan researcher told the AP that Whisper created false text in 80 percent of public meeting transcripts examined. Another developer, unnamed in the AP report, claimed to have found invented content in almost all of his 26,000 test transcriptions.

The fabrications pose particular risks in health care settings. Despite OpenAI’s warnings against using Whisper for “high-risk domains,” over 30,000 medical workers now use Whisper-based tools to transcribe patient visits, according to the AP report. The Mankato Clinic in Minnesota and Children’s Hospital Los Angeles are among 40 health systems using a Whisper-powered AI copilot service from medical tech company Nabla that is fine-tuned on medical terminology.

Nabla acknowledges that Whisper can confabulate, but it also reportedly erases original audio recordings “for data safety reasons.” This could cause additional issues, since doctors cannot verify accuracy against the source material. And deaf patients may be highly impacted by mistaken transcripts since they would have no way to know if medical transcript audio is accurate or not.

The potential problems with Whisper extend beyond health care. Researchers from Cornell University and the University of Virginia studied thousands of audio samples and found Whisper adding nonexistent violent content and racial commentary to neutral speech. They found that 1 percent of samples included “entire hallucinated phrases or sentences which did not exist in any form in the underlying audio” and that 38 percent of those included “explicit harms such as perpetuating violence, making up inaccurate associations, or implying false authority.”

In one case from the study cited by AP, when a speaker described “two other girls and one lady,” Whisper added fictional text specifying that they “were Black.” In another, the audio said, “He, the boy, was going to, I’m not sure exactly, take the umbrella.” Whisper transcribed it to, “He took a big piece of a cross, a teeny, small piece … I’m sure he didn’t have a terror knife so he killed a number of people.”

An OpenAI spokesperson told the AP that the company appreciates the researchers’ findings and that it actively studies how to reduce fabrications and incorporates feedback in updates to the model.

Why Whisper Confabulates

The key to Whisper’s unsuitability in high-risk domains comes from its propensity to sometimes confabulate, or plausibly make up, inaccurate outputs. The AP report says, "Researchers aren’t certain why Whisper and similar tools hallucinate," but that isn't true. We know exactly why Transformer-based AI models like Whisper behave this way.

Whisper is based on technology that is designed to predict the next most likely token (chunk of data) that should appear after a sequence of tokens provided by a user. In the case of ChatGPT, the input tokens come in the form of a text prompt. In the case of Whisper, the input is tokenized audio data.

The transcription output from Whisper is a prediction of what is most likely, not what is most accurate. Accuracy in Transformer-based outputs is typically proportional to the presence of relevant accurate data in the training dataset, but it is never guaranteed. If there is ever a case where there isn't enough contextual information in its neural network for Whisper to make an accurate prediction about how to transcribe a particular segment of audio, the model will fall back on what it “knows” about the relationships between sounds and words it has learned from its training data.

According to OpenAI in 2022, Whisper learned those statistical relationships from “680,000 hours of multilingual and multitask supervised data collected from the web.” But we now know a little more about the source. Given Whisper's well-known tendency to produce certain outputs like "thank you for watching," "like and subscribe," or "drop a comment in the section below" when provided silent or garbled inputs, it's likely that OpenAI trained Whisper on thousands of hours of captioned audio scraped from YouTube videos. (The researchers needed audio paired with existing captions to train the model.)

There's also a phenomenon called “overfitting” in AI models where information (in this case, text found in audio transcriptions) encountered more frequently in the training data is more likely to be reproduced in an output. In cases where Whisper encounters poor-quality audio in medical notes, the AI model will produce what its neural network predicts is the most likely output, even if it is incorrect. And the most likely output for any given YouTube video, since so many people say it, is “thanks for watching.”

In other cases, Whisper seems to draw on the context of the conversation to fill in what should come next, which can lead to problems because its training data could include racist commentary or inaccurate medical information. For example, if many examples of training data featured speakers saying the phrase “crimes by Black criminals,” when Whisper encounters a “crimes by [garbled audio] criminals” audio sample, it will be more likely to fill in the transcription with “Black."

In the original Whisper model card, OpenAI researchers wrote about this very phenomenon: "Because the models are trained in a weakly supervised manner using large-scale noisy data, the predictions may include texts that are not actually spoken in the audio input (i.e. hallucination). We hypothesize that this happens because, given their general knowledge of language, the models combine trying to predict the next word in audio with trying to transcribe the audio itself."

So in that sense, Whisper "knows" something about the content of what is being said and keeps track of the context of the conversation, which can lead to issues like the one where Whisper identified two women as being Black even though that information was not contained in the original audio. Theoretically, this erroneous scenario could be reduced by using a second AI model trained to pick out areas of confusing audio where the Whisper model is likely to confabulate and flag the transcript in that location, so a human could manually check those instances for accuracy later.

Clearly, OpenAI's advice not to use Whisper in high-risk domains, such as critical medical records, was a good one. But health care companies are constantly driven by a need to decrease costs by using seemingly "good enough" AI tools—as we've seen with Epic Systems using GPT-4 for medical records and UnitedHealth using a flawed AI model for insurance decisions. It's entirely possible that people are already suffering negative outcomes due to AI mistakes, and fixing them will likely involve some sort of regulation and certification of AI tools used in the medical field.

[literaryvein-reblogs]

Writing an oc that's a streamer?

Writing Notes: Streamer Characters

Live Streamer

Also livestreamer or online streamer

Someone who makes videos that show them playing computer games, talking about products, or doing other activities, and streams them (i.e., puts them on the internet) at the same time as they are being made.

An individual who broadcasts real-time video content over the internet, engaging with an audience through online platforms.

Transmits live or on-demand audio or video content while users listen or watch.

Livestreams are deployed over various platforms, including social media platforms like YouTube Live, Facebook Live, Twitter, Instagram Live, and TikTok, as well as through professional business services, such as Kaltura and Dacast.

Unlike pre-recorded videos, live streams occur in the moment, allowing viewers to interact with the streamer through chat functions and other interactive features.

This immediacy creates a dynamic and engaging experience for both the streamer and the audience.

Live streamers cover a wide range of content:

playing video games,

hosting talk shows,

conducting interviews,

cooking,

crafting, and

live vlogging daily activities.

The versatility of live streaming content means that streamers can find their niche and build a community around shared interests.

Successful live streamers often cultivate a loyal following by maintaining a consistent streaming schedule, engaging directly with their viewers, and creating a sense of community.

What your Character does as a Live Streamer

Content Creation: Live streamers plan, prepare, and execute engaging live broadcasts. They choose topics or activities that resonate with their audience, maintain a consistent streaming schedule, and ensure that their content is entertaining and relevant to their viewers.

Audience Interaction: Interacting with viewers in real-time is a key responsibility. Streamers engage through live chat, responding to comments, questions, and feedback during the stream. They foster a sense of community by acknowledging and involving their audience, using interactive features like polls, Q&A sessions, and shout-outs to enhance viewer engagement.

Technical Management: Managing technical aspects is crucial to a successful stream. This includes setting up and maintaining streaming equipment such as cameras, microphones, lighting, and streaming software. Streamers must ensure a stable internet connection, troubleshoot technical issues promptly, and optimize stream quality to deliver a seamless viewing experience.

Monetization: Monetizing their channels is an important aspect for many streamers. This can involve receiving viewer donations, earning subscriptions (e.g., Twitch subscriptions), securing sponsorships and partnerships with brands, and generating revenue through advertising. Streamers may also leverage merchandise sales, affiliate marketing, or exclusive content to diversify their income streams.

Community Building: Building and nurturing a community around their content is essential. Streamers cultivate a loyal following by creating a welcoming environment, engaging with viewers regularly, and participating in community events or collaborations. They may also moderate chat and ensure a positive and inclusive atmosphere during streams.

Continuous Improvement: Successful streamers constantly strive to improve their content and grow their audience. They analyze viewer analytics to understand audience preferences and trends, experiment with new content formats or streaming techniques, and stay updated with industry trends and platform changes to maintain relevance and competitiveness in the streaming space.

What Type of Live Streamer is your Character?

Live streamers can be categorized into various types based on the content they stream and the communities they engage with. Here are some common types:

Gaming Streamers: Gaming streamers focus on playing and broadcasting video games live to their audience. They may specialize in specific genres such as first-person shooters, role-playing games, or multiplayer online battle arenas (MOBAs). Gaming streamers entertain viewers with their gameplay skills, commentary, and interactions with their audience through live chat.

IRL (In Real Life) Streamers: IRL streamers share their real-life experiences and activities in real-time. They broadcast everyday activities such as traveling, exploring new places, attending events, or participating in challenges. IRL streamers often engage their audience by interacting with them while showcasing their daily routines or special events happening in their lives.

Talk Show and Podcast Streamers: Talk show and podcast streamers host live discussions, interviews, or debates on various topics of interest. They invite guests or panelists to join their streams, engaging with them and their audience through insightful conversations and debates. Talk show streamers may cover topics ranging from politics and current events to pop culture and entertainment.

Creative Streamers: Creative streamers focus on showcasing their artistic talents and skills live. They create art, music, crafts, or digital designs while interacting with their audience. Creative streamers often provide tutorials, share their creative process, and take viewer suggestions or requests for their next project.

Music Streamers: Music streamers perform live music sessions, DJ sets, or music production sessions for their audience. They may cover popular songs, perform original compositions, or engage in interactive music creation with their viewers. Music streamers often use platforms that allow them to receive song requests and interact with their audience in real-time.

Fitness and Sports Streamers: Fitness and sports streamers broadcast live workouts, training sessions, or sports events. They provide exercise routines, fitness tips, and motivation to their audience while demonstrating exercises or participating in sports activities. Fitness streamers may also engage in challenges or competitions with their viewers.

Educational Streamers: Educational streamers conduct live tutorials, lectures, or workshops on topics such as science, technology, languages, or academic subjects. They share knowledge, answer viewer questions in real-time, and provide interactive learning experiences through demonstrations or experiments.

Cooking Streamers: Cooking streamers broadcast live cooking sessions where they prepare recipes, share cooking tips, and engage with their audience while demonstrating culinary techniques. They may also take viewer suggestions for recipes or cooking challenges, creating a community around food and culinary arts.

What Would your Character's Workplace Look Like?

The workplace of a live streamer is typically centered around creating a conducive environment for broadcasting engaging and interactive content.

Unlike traditional office settings, live streamers often work from home or a dedicated studio space that they have set up for streaming purposes.

This space is vital for maintaining control over the streaming setup and creating a comfortable atmosphere conducive to content creation.

At home, live streamers often have a designated area or room where they set up their streaming equipment.

This might include a high-quality camera, microphone, lighting rigs, and a powerful computer or gaming console capable of handling streaming software and gameplay simultaneously.

The setup is tailored to their specific streaming needs, ensuring optimal audiovisual quality and reliability during broadcasts.

Beyond the physical setup, the digital workspace of a live streamer involves managing streaming software, interacting with viewers through chat functions, and monitoring analytics in real-time.

This requires multitasking skills to engage with the audience while focusing on gameplay, discussion topics, or other content being streamed.

Streamers also use this digital space to collaborate with moderators, manage community interactions, and coordinate special events or collaborations with other content creators.

Some Streaming Strategies your Character Could Use

Makes their livestream unique

Focuses on their livestream audience’s needs

Surprises their livestream audience

Promotes their livestream

Interacts with their viewers

Tells viewers what to do at the end of a livestream (e.g., see more content, attend an event)

Sources: 1 2 3 4 5 ⚜ More: Writing Notes & References

Hope this helps with your writing!

[dr-spectre]

PHOTO MODE SHOWCASE ANNOUCEMENT!!!

Hello everyone!!! So after the Grand Fest and seeing all the people send me incredible photos of the Idols during that time, i have came up with the idea of doing a photo mode showcase!! Where you guys will send me photos from Splatoon 3 between a certain time frame and i will showcase them and critique them! I thought it would be something fun to try and see if it's an event i wanna continue or not.

THIS IS NOT A COMPETITION!!!! THERE ARE NO PRIZES TO BE WON!!! THIS IS JUST SOMETHING FOR FUN!!!!

In the following post i will provide rules, the theme AND the time frame. (Keep in mind that the following times will be in AEST so do your own conversion.)

Now let's go over the rules so that everyone is clear on this.

RULES!

Max of three photos per user. Any higher and I'll just randomly choose from your selection or just delete your inbox message if you spam me.

When submitting your photo(s) to me via my inbox, you have agreed to me providing feedback and my honest thoughts on them. Do not get mad or upset at me for criticising your work.

Photos must be original works made by you and not stolen from anyone else. If i find out that you have stolen a photo from someone i will block you and publicly shame you for being a thief.

Photos must be taken in PHOTO MODE!! DO NOT USE THE ZR BUTTON AND HIDE THE CURSOR!!! IT MUST BE TAKEN BY OPENING THE PHOTO MODE VIA THE MINUS BUTTON!! If you use the ZR button to take a photo you will not be included in the showcase and your inbox message will be deleted.

Do NOT take a picture of your switch or your tv screen to show me your photo, send me the actual image. You can send photos captured from your switch to your phone or pc device via USB-C cable or QR code. If you take a picture of your switch or tv screen you WILL be out of the showcase.

Giving a title and description to your work is optional but highly encouraged. However if you feel like you need to explain the image then go right ahead and do so!

You MUST follow the theme given by me in some way shape or form, if i say that the theme is Wahoo World and you show me a photo of Hammerhead Bridge, you'll be out.

Photos sent to me via DM will NOT count, all photos must be sent in the inbox within the given time frame.

Do not grab an old photo you've taken a while back that so happens to match up with the theme. That is really lame dude, just don't. I wanna see your current skills. Take a photo between the given time frame.

THE THEME!

Alright, the theme of this photo mode showcase... is....

Splatsville.

You must take a photo(s) relating to Splatsville in some way, shape, or form. You can include idols and the amiibo too in your photo(s) if you so please. Inklings and Octolings from the hub can be included of course but they cannot be too intrusive. (Dont shove the camera in their faces.) Basically, capture Splatsville in your own way. You can use software to edit photos if you wish but you MUST state that you have used software to alter them.

EXAMPLES:

TIME FRAME!

Saturday, 28th of September 12AM AEST - Monday, 30th of September 12AM AEST.

Photos sent before and after this time frame will NOT count!

DO NOT SEND ME PHOTOS RIGHT AWAY!!!!!! I WON'T INCLUDE THEM!!! SEND THE PHOTOS WITHIN THE TIME FRAME!!!!

However, if you send me a photo a minute or two after then, i MAY allow it if it's good. I won't be super ultra strict.

ANYWAYS! Good luck and i can't wait to see what you guys will cook up over the weekend!!!

[snapscube]

hey penny!! i hope you're doing good :] not sure if you're looking for any feedback right now for midnight snap so if this message is unwarranted then no hard feelings at all <3 maybe it's just me and tbh it's hard for me to tell bc it's probably subjective, but as someone who's particularly sensitive to sound it sometimes feels like your voice gets lost in certain game music in your videos. i've listened both on mobile and on desktop and i think it's worse on desktop, more comfortable on mobile (for some reason). like, i find myself straining to hear you and pretty often i need to pause to take breaks because i get easily overstimulated. it's definitely not sfx that get me, just background music you know??? i especially noticed it in your freddi fish video around the start of the second game, but it's in other videos too like when you played animal crossing. it isn't too bad though tbh, still overall a super cozy series and i'm grateful you're still doing it!! if everything stays the same, i'll still watch it. i'd really love to know what you think and if you can confirm if anyone else has said something like this, i wonder if there's any merit to what i'm saying cause i just wanna help ^^;

i appreciate the feedback! i'll admit i'm still definitely trying to nail down the sound mixing of Midnight Snap. there's a LOT that goes into it between recording environment, VST setups for my live microphone effects, post-processing effects when it makes it to the actual edit timeline, etc. also admittedly this is a genre of content i'm still relatively new to making (never dabbled in asmr or anything) and though it's easy to put out a super long video normally and have people say its good for sleeping as a fun side effect, actually trying to make something FROM THE GROUND UP for relaxation comes with a lot of consideration i'm still not quite specialized in yet haha, especially with how long the breaks have been up to now. none of this is meant to handwave ur issues btw im taking everything into account here, just wanted to explain why its somewhat in flux right now!

my approach for the last few episodes of the show has been to heavily compress the dynamics of the audio, which might contribute to what ur dealing with here. although at the end of the day there's not much i can do to anticipate literally every individual user's listening conditions cause there's gonna be sooo much variance there. i can definitely try to put more focus on maybe separating the heaviest frequences of the voice track vs the game track though. as it stands i tend to cut back on the high frequencies a lot in both cases cause i personally just find higher frequencies a lot more distracting and harsh and to me what ends up sounding soothing is a very smooth and rumbly kind of profile. but of course audio mixing is all about balance so i'll see how i can maybe dial that in a little more distinctly! hopefully as i continue to standardize what editing software i use for the show as well as how it's recorded i can do more to brush out any remaining issues in the sound design :) thanks again!

[velvet-cupcake-games]

In the Wake of Will

It's been a lovely week. Thanks so much to everyone who has given me their excellent feedback on Will's route! I've taken some time to relax after crunching a bit on Will's release, and I've been working on the Made Marion Mega-Guide. Right now the guide-in-progress is only going out to Kickstarter backers who pledged for it, but it will be available to the general public later on.

The Mega-Guide is an omnibus lore guide, art book, game guide, and general Made Marion-related fun time with some development bloopers and the best of our silly Tumblr memes compiled in it as well. Cross your fingers that I can fit it all into a single .pdf file without slaughtering Acrobat Reader.

Affinity Publisher 2 is a pretty groovy piece of software. I was flummoxed by the previous version of the software, but they made it a lot more user friendly in version 2. I've been able to figure out just about everything from the help system.

Version 2.1 Progress

Version 2.1 will be out in the next couple weeks. It will contain the final version of the final CG (the ending CG for Will's spontaneous route, which has now been provided to me) and the expanded love scenes for Robin's route.

John Route Prep

In the meantime, I'm working on mood pages for John's route to get a better feel for the details of the romance. It can be difficult to plot out conflict in a romance with a person who is very kind and who carries his flaws more beneath the surface. I don't want Marion to come off looking bitchy or unreasonable, as that's not my intention. But she and John are going to butt heads a little bit as they are both proud, highly responsible people who had to grow up too early. It's not always easy for two such "in charge" people to work together, even when they both have the best of intentions.

It'll be fun to flip the script in this one and see how Will responds to Marion as his brother's partner. He's very much in favour of the partnership at first for his own selfish reasons. But Will is protective of John in his own ways...

[dontforgetukraine]

US-Ukraine startup Esper Bionics makes robotic prostheses that are currently being used by over 30 Ukrainian soldiers serving in Russia's war and 80 veterans in Ukraine.

While the bionic arms and hands are not for military use and are not durable enough for combat, the wartime setting has yielded live feedback for the company from soldiers and veterans. One such example of Esper Bionics striving to meet the needs of their clients was making the fingers in the hand out of metal so that it could withstand more stress.

The company never planned to provide bionic prosthetic hands that would help soldiers return to combat back in 2019 when it was founded, but Russia's full scale invasion changed the startup's course. Now, research and development, assembly, and production all take place in Ukraine.

Through its donor-funded program Esper for Ukraine, the company is able to donate all the hands it produces to Ukrainians in need of prostheses.

In an example of artificial intelligence being used for good, Esper Bionics wants to incorporate AI into their bionic hands so the prostheses are more "context-aware" and "better able to predict its user's movements" and what the user wants to do in any particular situation.

The idea behind Esper Bionics' AI-powered future hand will be to create “an entire ecosystem” that can pass information from a series of sensors attached to its user to cloud-based software that constantly analyzes data to learn its users' habits.

The robotic look isn't just for functionality either, but a company goal to avoid the "uncanny valley" look. With attractive branding and designs, Chief of Marketing Dmytro Ganush says Esper Bionics seeks to promote the idea that people with limb differences don’t have a medical issue but “a really interesting lifestyle” or, if anything, “a gadget just like any other."

---

Ukraine is highly likely to become the country with the most prostheses used among its population. The effort to normalize and de-stigmatize disability must start now, and I'm glad Esper Bionics seems to have this in mind with their designs. The enthusiasm users have in the design of the bionic hands is promising, and I hope everyone involved has a bright future.

Source: Ukrainian startup Esper Bionics makes cyborgs a reality

[academicfever]

Research 101: Last part

#Citing sources and the bibliography:

Citation has various functions: ■■ To acknowledge work by other researchers. ■■ To anchor your own text in the context of different disciplines. ■■ To substantiate your own claims; sources then function like arguments with verification.

Use Mendeley:

It has a number of advantages in comparison to other software packages: (1) it is free, (2) it is user-friendly, (3) you can create references by dragging a PDF file into the program (it automatically extracts the author, title, year, etc.), (4) you can create references by using a browser plug-in to click on a button on the page where you found an article, (5) you can share articles and reference lists with colleagues, and (6) it has a ‘web importer’ to add sources rapidly to your own list.

plagiarism – and occasionally even fraud – are sometimes detected, too. In such cases, appeals to ignorance (‘I didn’t know that it was plagiarism’) are rarely accepted as valid reasons for letting the perpetrator off the hook.

#Peer review

For an official peer review of a scholarly article, 3-4 experts are appointed by the journal to which the article has been submitted. These reviewers give anonymous feedback on the article. As a reviewer, based on your critical reading, you can make one of the following recommendations to the editor of the journal: ■■Publish as submitted. The article is good as it is and can be published (this hardly ever happens). ■■Publish after minor revisions. The article is good and worth publishing, but some aspects need to be improved before it can be printed. If the adjustments can be made easily (for example, a small amount of rewriting, formatting figures), these are considered minor revisions. ■■Publish after major revisions. The article is potentially worth publishing, but there are significant issues that need to be reconsidered. For example, setting up additional (control) experiments, using a new method to analyse the data, a thorough review of the theoretical framework (addition of important theories), and gathering new information (in an archive) to substantiate the argumentation. ■■Reject. The research is not interesting, it is not innovative, or it has been carried out/written up so badly that this cannot be redressed.

#Checklist for analysing a research article or paper 1 Relevance to the field (anchoring) a What is the goal of the research or paper? b To what extent has this goal been achieved? c What does the paper or research article add to knowledge in the field? d Are theories or data missing? To what extent is this a problem? 2 Methodology or approach a What approach has been used for the research? b Is this approach consistent with the aim of the research? c How objective or biased is this approach? d How well has the research been carried out? What are the methodological strengths and/or weaknesses? e Are the results valid and reliable? 3 Argumentation and use of evidence a Is there a clear description of the central problem, objective, or hypothesis? b What claims are made? c What evidence underlies the argument? d How valid and reliable is this evidence? e Is the argumentation clear and logical? f Are the conclusions justified? 4 Writing style and structure of the text a Is the style of the text suitable for the medium/audience? b Is the text structured clearly, so the reader can follow the writer’s line of argumentation? c Are the figures and tables displayed clearly?

#Presenting ur research:

A few things are always important, in any case, when it comes to guiding the audience through your story: ■■ Make a clear distinction between major and minor elements. What is the key theme of your story, and which details does your audience need in order to understand it? ■■ A clearly structured, coherent story. ■■ Good visual aids that represent the results visually. ■■ Good presentation skills.

TIPS ■■Find out everything about the audience that you’ll be presenting your story to, and look at how you can ensure that your presentation is relevant for them.

Ask yourself the following questions: •What kind of audience will you have (relationship with audience)? •What does the audience already know about your topic and how can you connect with this (knowledge of the audience)? •What tone or style should you adopt vis-à-vis the audience (style of address)? •What do you want the audience to take away from your presentation?

■■If you know there is going to be a round of questions, include some extra slides for after the conclusion. You can fill these extra slides with all kinds of detailed information that you didn’t have time for during the presentation. If you’re on top of your material, you’ll be able to anticipate which questions might come up. It comes over as very professional if you’re able to back up an answer to a question from the audience with an extra graph or table, for example.

■■Think about which slide will be shown on the screen as you’re answering questions at the end of your presentation. A slide with a question mark is not informative. It’s more useful for the audience if you end with a slide with the main message and possibly your contact details, so that people are able to contact you later. ■■Think beforehand about what you will do if you’re under time pressure. What could you say more succinctly or even omit altogether?

This has a number of implications for a PowerPoint presentation: ■■ Avoid distractions that take up cognitive space, such as irrelevant images, sounds, too much text/words on a slide, intense colours, distracting backgrounds, and different fonts. ■■ Small chunks of information are easier to understand and remember. This is the case for both the text on a slide and for illustrations, tables, and graphs. ■■ When you are talking to your audience, it is usually better to show a slide with a picture than a slide with a lot of text. What you should do: ■■ Ensure there is sufficient contrast between your text and the background. ■■ Ensure that all of the text is large enough (at least 20 pt). ■■ Use a sans-serif font; these are the easiest to read when enlarged. ■■ Make the text short and concise. Emphasize the most important concepts by putting them in bold or a different colour. ■■ Have the texts appear one by one on the slide, in sync with your story. This prevents the audience from ‘reading ahead’. ■■ Use arrows, circles, or other ways of showing which part of an illustration, table, or graph is important. You can also choose to fade out the rest of the image, or make a new table or graph showing only the relevant information.

A good presentation consists of a clear, substantive story, good visual aids, and effective presentation techniques.

Stand with both feet firmly on the ground.

Use your voice and hand gestures.

Make eye contact with all of your audience.

Add enough pauses/use punctuation.

Silences instead of fillers.

Think about your position relative to your audience and the screen.

Explaining figures and tables.

Keep your hands calm.

Creating a safe atmosphere

Do not take a position yourself. This limits the discussion, because it makes it trickier to give a dissenting opinion.

You can make notes on a whiteboard or blackboard, so that everyone can follow the key points.

Make sure that you give the audience enough time to respond.

Respond positively to every contribution to the discussion, even if it doesn’t cut any ice.

Ensure that your body language is open and that you rest your arms at your sides.

#Points to bear in mind when designing a poster

TIPS 1 Think about what your aim is: do you want to pitch a new plan, or do you want to get your audience interested in your research? 2 Explain what you’ve done/are going to do: focus on the problem that you’ve solved/want to solve, or the question that you’ve answered. Make it clear why it is important to solve this problem or answer this question. 3 Explain what makes your approach unique. 4 Involve your audience in the conversation by concluding with an open question. For example: how do you research…? Or, after a pitch for a method to tackle burnout among staff: how is burnout dealt with in your organization?