Make bug reporting great again (bug reporting improvements)

artemzheg · 2023-07-29T21:30:31.401Z

Problem

Current bug reporting system is overcomplicated. This leads to frustration and keeps developers away from reporting (you can easily find tons of messages on the forum or on Twitter about it).

How can it be improved

1. Make it possible to report a bug right from the Bubble editor

Sometimes ago Bubble used to have bug reporting link in the editor (in Help section). But after transforming Help dropdown into a Help center sidemenu this link has disappeared.

Furthermore, don’t just redirect to the Report a bug page. Make it possible to fill all the details within the same app editor page.

Link to upvote on Bubble Ideaboard

2. Autofill fields that can be autofilled

This is a feature connected with the proposal above. As soon as you make it possible to report a bug from the editor - you can easily autofill info like Impacted application and Link to application editor.
Those who have a bunch of production and sandbox apps suffer from choosing an impacted application from the dropdown of the bug reporting page

Link to upvote on Bubble Ideaboard

3. Change dropdowns to cards/tiles

Let’s see first steps to create a bug right now:

Choose When does this bug occur?
Dropdown with 4 options to chose from (app building, connecting a domain, connecting API and building a plugin).
Number of clicks: 2 (open dropdown and choose an option).
Choose Is the bug in the application editor or run-mode?
Dropdown with just 2 options to chose from → application editor or run mode
Number of clicks: 2 (open dropdown and choose an option).

So we’ve just started our bug reporting process but we’ve already made 4 clicks just to choose 2 options from short lists. How to improve it? Replace such dropdowns to cards/tiles (so all options are shown simultaneously without any additional clicks) or toggle element (for two option lists). Like this:

Screenshot 2023-07-29 at 23.57.201150×272 14.2 KB

Other dropdowns that can be replaced by cards/tiles:

Impacted version?
How often does the bug occur?
How is this bug impacting you?

So we can reduce 10 clicks (5 dropdowns values choosing) in a half just by using another UI element.

Link to upvote on Bubble Ideaboard

4. Make some `Impact` fields optional

When my app is completely down or app editor is crashing/loading for ages - there is no need to fill How often does the bug occur? and When did this last occur?information.
If you still need this info (I agree that it may be helpful in some cases) - make it mandatory for some How is this bug impacting you? options, but not for urgent incidents when app or editor are broken or have poor performance.

Link to upvote on Bubble Ideaboard

5. Implement bug/incident priority

Implement incidents priority (btw, I suppose Bubble has internal priority that is calculated based on impact info). As a follow-up/variant of previous idea. Replace How is this bug impacting you? with choosing a priority:

Urgent → live app is broken, business processes can’t be carried out
High → live app is not broken, but business processes are highly affected; app development is blocked
Medium → some things are not working but can be worked around
Low → other issues that have low impact on app live version and development process

Link to upvote on Bubble Ideaboard

6. Replace email support with a support center

After reporting a bug all further communication between bug reporter and Bubble support team is held via emails. There are 2 big disadvantages of such an approach from a reporter perspective:

It’s not convenient. Especially when he needs to share additional images.
It’s not easy to search for all bugs he reported in his email box.

I suppose Bubble for sure has a Service Desk system (some SaaS or custom solution). So grant reporters with an access to the system with all necessary authorisations. All we need is to have an access to all bugs we’ve reported and possibility to communicate with support team there.

Link to upvote on Bubble Ideaboard

boston85719 · 2023-07-30T17:31:49.236Z

Please put this onto the idea board. From most of my recent bug reports I’m told by support that the issue is a known/expected behavior and I should submit ideas to the idea board and that engineers actually look at the idea board.

I’d love to see improvements to the support system as it is currently not that time friendly.

They should also bring back the Bug report tracker so we could easily request support to give some insight into the Bugs they take 30 days to reply back to.

artemzheg · 2023-07-31T20:18:42.063Z

Matthew McGowan:

Please put this onto the idea board.

Here we go:

Bug reporting from app editor + autofill app data [feature requests #1 and #2 merged]
Change dropdowns to cards/tiles
Make some Impact fields optional
Implement bug/incident priority
Replace email support with a support center

Matthew McGowan:

From most of my recent bug reports I’m told by support that the issue is a known/expected behavior and I should submit ideas to the idea board and that engineers actually look at the idea board.

Yep, that’s what Sam and some other Bubble team members stated on the forum and Twitter too. Btw, I’ve posted some ideas about ideaboard previously:

Bubble Ideaboard improvements Idea

Bubble Ideaboard launched in the end of 2020 as a tool to measure community interest in new features and existing functionality improvements. Since then we have two places with no connection to share ideas: Idea category on the forum and Ideaboard. For idea initiator forum is a more convenient place to share ideas cause you can get more attention and feedback from the community (and add some images, which is not possible on Ideaboard). At the same time posting ideas on the Ideaboard is more p…

boston85719 · 2023-08-01T07:45:47.985Z

I think this would be great for @josh to take a look at as each monthly community update speaks to Bug reporting. Would be great to get some improvements in place.

artemzheg · 2023-09-19T12:23:57.127Z

Another one idea on making bug reporting process more convenient for platform-wide issues (like recent one).

Proposal:

As soon as the number of similar bug reports in a short period of time exceeds threshold of XX → mark it as a platform-wide issue
On the bug reporting page show this issue on top.

Screenshot 2023-09-19 at 15.49.182322×122 6.68 KB

So users will be able to check symptoms and details. And add a button like “Me too” (or “I face the same bug”):

Screenshot 2023-09-19 at 15.49.281626×930 57.6 KB

When user clicks the button - ask him choose his app’s name and give an option to send some comments (optional) before confirmation.
Voila, user submitted a platform wide bug in a couple of seconds without the need to fill all unnecessary details.

mghatiya · 2023-09-19T13:59:26.880Z

And as has been brought up before, there should be a bug bounty programme.

Bugs are just too many. And time not only goes in filing, but also in following things:

Writing down full scenario and bug description
Writing steps to reproduce
Creating example page with simplified logic and all business logic/login etc removed
Creating screen recordings
Explaining support staff on details
Explaining support staff why it is bug

chris.williamson1996 · 2023-09-19T14:02:45.851Z

Bubble is such an unstable bug fest as of late I don’t think they could afford a sufficient bug program even with their funding

jonah.deleseleuc · 2023-09-19T14:47:04.751Z

Bubble is pushing a lot of bugs lately. Without speculating why, it’s obvious that bug reporting is becoming more important. What I would love is a report bug button inside the editor that autofills the current sessions information (browser, browser version, time & data, name, app name, runtime url, etc …) and that auto screenshots the page and includes it there. Then I can add a few words about the bug.

This process should be as easy and painless as possible. I have stopped reporting bugs lately because the frequency of bugs is so high + the process to report bugs is not convenient.

Love the ideas in this thread. I think this is a really important topic.

TipLister · 2023-09-19T15:07:55.475Z

i still think the top bug reporters each quarter should receive bountys.

i no longer report bugs cos 80% of time it is some not helpful answer. (please describe the steps when i have; it is a known issue; we cannot reproduce)

while i report a bug i can just find some workaround and not lose my time with no upside for me.

jonah.deleseleuc · 2023-09-19T19:35:58.160Z

Absolutely. We are not bug testers, we are users.