The value of unhelpful feedback

One of the significant lessons I've learned as a tech writer is that feedback—even the seemingly unhelpful kind—can be incredibly valuable when viewed at scale.

When I was working on internal documentation for a startup, one of my biggest challenges was a lack of feedback. Without user insights, it was hard to understand if I was doing a good job and, in the moments of desperation, if it was even needed.

Fast-forward to my current role at a company with extensive external documentation. I now get a lot of feedback. Some of it isn't immediately useful—often incomplete, sometimes just expressions of frustration, and occasionally criticism of the product itself rather than the docs. It became second nature to filter out these comments to focus on actionable insights.

Recently, however, I noticed an unusual spike in disappointment about a particular page, one that covered a simple feature in our latest release. My first reaction was disbelief. There's no way this could be outdated already. But then I realized that such a significant number of reactions couldn't be wrong.

It turned out that users had spotted a change in the product before the information reached me internally. Their collective "unhelpful" feedback became a crucial alert. Not only did it prompt an immediate update to the documentation, but it also highlighted a gap in our internal communication processes.

A valuable lesson for me: feedback in large quantities, even if individually unhelpful, can reveal patterns and insights that are very useful. It's a reminder to listen actively, to look beyond the surface, and to appreciate the unexpected ways in which our audiences can help make our work better.