Require comments on negative feedback or leave OOTB?

[amarks]

We are making our KB available to a new audience. The OOTB solution for feedback is that when someone marks and article as helpful/not helpful, a dialog box opens allow them to select from a list of responses.  The default response is "Other."  There is a comment box available to add details, should the user wish to do so.

Some of members are arguing to make the details mandatory if "other" is selected claiming that we may end up with negative feedback that isn't specifically actionable. Others, including me, are advocating for leaving the ability to submit without comment to ensure the best user experience and minimal barriers to providing feedback. My inclination is to adopt a position of "address it if it is an issue," especially if the risk is negligible.  I'd like to hear your opinion on the matter.

Thanks,

Adam

[amarks]

Sumanth, we would like to know if we can receive the feedback record without creating a feedback task for some scenarios:

Would you happen to know if it is possible to NOT create a feedback task if the "other" box is checked and there are no details in the detail box, or if someone <clicks> No thanks, or if someone <clicks> "x" in the dialog box?

[Gianluca Roncat]

Consider that the feedback task is created also if the user don't check any box but close the window with the X

We made the details mandatory but very few users give details, using the X to close the window. I suppose you have to ask yourself: if I receive a negative feedback without any motivation is it useful?

[StacyJ]

We enabled KFT's in April without making the feedback for articles marked 'unhelpful' a requirement. I think it was a big mistake. I would rather have some feed to help my article owner make decisions on how to review an update their articles than to have to chase feedback if there are no apparent issues or send them down a rabbit hole of trying to make unnecessary updates. Just my two cents.  

[John_Wilkes]

I'm interested in the idea of not creating feedback tasks if no comment is given but I would still want the feedback to be recorded so I can trend articles with a lot of negative feedback. I wouldn't make giving comments as mandatory as I think this will deter feedback or give poor quality feedback. If I was the reader of an article that didn't work and I didn't know how to make it work I may give a thumbs down and maybe put N/A if I was forced to leave a mandatory comment. 

[amarks]

Hi @John_Wilkes, we ended up going with creating an incident task only if there is a comment added. We still create the feedback without a comment but we don't generate an incident task (since there is no actionable feedback). We are finding this allows us to gather information about articles in the aggregate, and we can then review periodically if we have repeated feedback (but no feedback task) for an article.