digitalBush

A constant source of frustration at my workplace revolves around bug reporting.  In general, this is a touchy situation anyway.  Developers are proud of their work and really don't like being put down.  Users have problems that they want fixed, but don't have any way to do it themselves.  Furthermore, many end users don't have the capability to express their issues in an effective manner.  Here's a few tips for users that hopefully can make things easier.

1. Stop - If you encounter an error, stop.  Not forever, but it's important to pause for a brief moment in time so that you can do the things below.  Blind button pressing and clicking doesn't do a damn thing but make more crap go wrong.  It's important to take notice of the first thing that happens, not the very last thing after you got tired of wildly clicking on the screen.  Once you find a problem, all bets are off.  Chances are more stuff won't work after you've encountered an issue
2. Calm Down - Freaking out doesn't improve the situation at all.  Panic clouds the mind and spreads like wildfire.  Don't get upset and definitely don't yell.  If you cause a stink and throw a tantrum you'll make me hold a grudge.  It's hard to help someone that always has a problem and it's always a priority that it be fixed 5 minutes ago.
3. Think - The important thing for a developer in bug fixing is being able to narrow down the circumstances that produce the problem.  This requires you to trace back over your steps.  Did you do anything differently this time than you have before? If the answer is yes, then that is important to me.  If you can reproduce the problem, then that's even better.
4. Look - Did you get an error message?  If you did, don't blindly click the Continue button and act like nothing ever happened.  Those cryptic messages are important to use.  Take a screenshot or copy and paste.  Here's where it's important for you to look back over what you did and make sure you aren't doing something stupid.  No matter how many times you click send, that email will never go to that misspelled email address, I promise.
5. Be specific - It's important to know where you were when you encountered the error.  What program/website were you using?  What were you trying to do when you found the problem?  What action did you do immediately before stuff hit the fan?  It's also important for us to know what computer you were using and maybe even more specific things about that computer.  Hold off on the extreme specifics unless I ask for them.
   Here's a good example: This past business trip I had a problem sending email in Outlook on my laptop.
   Here's a bad example: My email doesn't work.
6. Don't tell me how to fix the problem - 99% of the time you're wrong. 100% of the time you will annoy me. I'm not saying that you aren't smart, it's just that you don't know about the stuff that goes on behind the curtain.  I'm not trying to be a jerk here, but there are certain things that I know that you don't.  You're just guessing and in the process you're putting thoughts in my head that will lead me down the wrong path.  You do your job. I'll do my job.  We'll work through this together.
7. Follow reporting procedure - If there is a process in place for reporting problems, then use it.  When I ask you to log a ticket it's not because I'm being an ass.  We have a ticket system to organize, prioritize, and archive our workload.  Bypassing the procedures is likely to get your issue lost in the shuffle of things.  You're also more likely to get different people working on the same thing without knowing it causing wasted man hours lost to double work.