Soliciting Web site user feedback. Posting online surveys. E-mailing listservs. Pulling together focus groups. Is this the long and the short of the plan for guaging the effectiveness of your Web site? If so, you will be rewarded with a wide scattershot of commentary, much of which is neither accurate nor usable. always crashing in the same car: recurring mistakes and misuses of the web In fact, implementing this ilk of "user feedback" can be detrimental to your site's health. Think about it. If you were overseeing the construction a classroom building, would you conduct focus groups and surveys to determine what materials should be used, where the doors and stairways should go, how strong the load-bearing walls should be? No? You would rely on qualified architects? Then why on earth would you open the door for individuals who have no understanding of how the Web works to step in and have a direct hand in your site design? When this type of free-form user feedback enters
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