Epic: Low-friction dashboard form to collect feedback

[jldec]

Summary

Users are more likely to provide feedback, the easier we make it for them.

Inspired by the feedback form for Gitpod docs pages, we'd like offer a similar form in the dashboard. (see below)

Requirements

• Needs to work for errors as well as all dashboard pages
• Offer the same emoji, and an input prompting for feedback.
• Send responses to Segment
• Include the page context and any error state

Proposed Interaction

• Dashboard: replace Help -> Feedback which opens Modal (move Help under user dropdown)
• Errors: Ask Was this helpful? with emojis, then open same Modal

Modal (Non selected)	Modal (Active)

Login Error	Workspace Error

Existing form in docs

On every page	Emoji opens form

cc: @jakobhero

Tasks

• Implement feedback modal #9928
  - [ ] Hide behind feature flag
• Adjust top nav
• Implement for error pages #10062
• Hide Feedback Form for self-hosted #10296

[gtsiolis]

Thanks for the ping, @jldec! 🏓

Cross-linking also a past issue related to this in #4196 in case it contains any helpful content. Feel free to also close one of these if needed. 📕

While I'm in favor of making it easier to collect user feedback from within the product, there're multiple ways to approach this. For example, building better issue template forms for feature requests or bug reports, and potentially linking directly to those could be a good MVC (minimum viable change) step, etc. Also, it could be worth discussing what feedback points or types could help or bring in more impact for the product before proceeding with any design proposals. 💭

FWIW, there was also a relevant issue in #3564 which surfaced the need to have a system status indicator for service availability which could be also related here. See #4160 and early design drafts in #4160 (comment). 🟠

I'm adding this as a discussion point for our next sync meeting but let me know if you think this is something I could start actively work on in terms of design. Cross-linking also relevant comment (internal) from a past PLG sync meeting. Unassigning for now.

[jldec]

Thanks @gtsiolis 🏓

The suggestions to link to feedback issues or another form are helpful, but they are not low friction enough. We need a way for users to provide their sentiment and a very quick bit of text without changing context or being faced with a myriad of questions (which tends to happen with issues).

I don't think we should rely on the same mechanism for system status (we need well-instrumented alerts for that).

I think the docs feedback has been quite successful and we can use it as a model, so yes, you can go ahead with ideas for how / where to enable something similar in the dashboard.

[gtsiolis]

Posting below a proposal for adding a feedback widget within the dashboard. Cc @jldec

Going through the navigation:

Current	Breakdown	Scaling	Proposal

Going with a visible menu item that trriggers a modal on click, depending on whether we'd like to include the emojis on this iteration, here's how the modal could look like:

Modal (Iteration 1)	Modal (Iteration 2 - Non selected)	Modal (Iteration 2 - Hover & Active)

Minor clarification comments on the designs above:

1. Move Docs and Help links inside the user dropdown menu.
2. Add Feedback link in the user menu
3. Order 🤩 first.
4. Use a text area component.
5. Use the text area help text to redirect to our issue tracker.

See design specs.