1. 2010
    Jul
    25

    Facebook does bug reports right

    There are a lot of complaints you could make about Facebook, many of them legitimate, but the bug reporting process is one thing I think they really do well.

    A while ago I had occasion to report a problem with the message inbox showing up as a blank page. As the first step in the process, Facebook presents you with a grouped list of categories corresponding to the different features of the site. Each one is tagged with the same icon used on other menus, so it’s easy to identify, and the images really help to visually distinguish the different categories. I much prefer that to the standard bug reporting interface, where all you get is a combo box with a long list of different products or categories (text-only of course), some of which you may not even be familiar with.

    On Facebook, when you click the category that matches your bug, you get a list of the common reports that have already been filed under that category. But unlike a typical bug listing which uses the (often non-descriptive) bug report titles submitted by users, the titles are written by members of the Facebook team, and they’re all …