How to get honest feedback on your app
Friends say it looks great. Strangers quietly close the app. Neither tells you what to fix. Here's how to get feedback you can act on.
Why "looks great" is useless
People who know you want to be kind, and people who don't know you have no reason to explain themselves. So you get compliments from one group and silence from the other. What you need is a third group: people who have no stake in your feelings but a reason to be specific.
Ask about behaviour, not opinions
"Do you like it?" invites politeness. Questions about what someone actually did invite detail:
- Where did you stop or hesitate?
- What did you expect to happen when you tapped that?
- What did you try to do that the app didn't let you?
- Would you open it again tomorrow? Why or why not?
Always ask for both sides
A simple rule changes the quality of feedback: ask every tester for one thing that worked and one thing that didn't. It gives people permission to criticise, and the "what worked" half tells you what not to break. Asolo makes both halves required for every review for exactly this reason.
Give people a reason to be specific
Specific feedback takes effort, so make it worth someone's time:
- Swap with other developers. They know how much a detailed bug report is worth because they want one too.
- Set concrete tasks. "Create a note and find it tomorrow" produces a story. "Try the app" produces a shrug.
- Reward the useful reviews, not the positive ones. If anything is tied to a review, tie it to whether it helped you, never to how nice it was.
Don't buy reviews
Paying for store ratings or trading them with other developers feels like a shortcut. It breaks Apple's App Store Review Guidelines and Google Play's policies, consumer-protection law in many countries bans fake reviews, and it doesn't tell you anything about your app. Keep feedback private and honest; let public ratings come from real users.
Where to start
- Watch three people use your app without helping them. Note every pause.
- Post in a community where people discuss your app's topic, with three specific questions.
- Join a feedback exchange like Asolo: list your tasks, review someone else's app, and get a two-sided review of yours.
Someone is ready to try your app.
Try another developer's app and tell them, kindly and honestly, what worked and what didn't. Then someone does the same for yours.
Get started for free