Inviting Users to Participate
Very early on in our development process (Jan. 2004) we made the conscious decision in include the "Suggestions? Bugs? Send them here" link in the header and therefore on every page of the site.
This was as much because, being a team of two people we needed to keep on top of bugs as it was because we wanted to establish a close dialogue with our users right away.
This seemingly small decision ended up shaping the dodgeball story more than we thought it could. Most of the big features on the site came directly as a result of this, starting with "The Ex-Girlfriend Bug" (which led to being able to manage friends).
This mentality was also evident in the way we tried to address our users' issues - we called it Guerilla Customer Service.
This was as much because, being a team of two people we needed to keep on top of bugs as it was because we wanted to establish a close dialogue with our users right away.
This seemingly small decision ended up shaping the dodgeball story more than we thought it could. Most of the big features on the site came directly as a result of this, starting with "The Ex-Girlfriend Bug" (which led to being able to manage friends).
This mentality was also evident in the way we tried to address our users' issues - we called it Guerilla Customer Service.