How Stability.ai Leveraged Discord for QA Feedback When Building an App

If you want your app to be successful, gaining user sentiment is key! Discord provides a space where people can feel comfortable talking about similar interests. For developers, this freedom opens up opportunities for real-time feedback from users and community members: fueling iterations, and leading to better apps. Stability.ai is one of several research-driven companies that has been able to leverage Discord as a flywheel to make its QA feedback loop better, and in turn, create better apps for everyone.

Meet Stability.ai

Stability.ai is a generative AI company whose goal is to create the foundation to activate humanity's potential. Their StableDreamer app for Discord allows users to test the company’s latest image-generation models and provide feedback on its output directly to the Stability.ai team. Discord has been an incredibly valuable platform for Stability.ai to not only collect a vast amount of feedback, but also gain deeper insight from its biggest users and monitor real-life use cases for its products. 

User Experience and Evolution

Building an app on Discord can be pretty simple — even those with minimal programming knowledge can quickly become familiar with Discord's development process thanks to our detailed API documentation.
"Using the Discord API – has paved the way for efficient, intuitive, and fun user interaction – especially on the Slash Commands channel,” said Kyle Lacey, one of Stability.ai’s senior developers for StableDreamer. “The Discord API's strength lies not just in its ability to handle complex tasks but also in its potential to foster a sense of community."

The StableDreamer app has evolved and improved the user experience in response to the valuable feedback it has received from its Discord community. The API also helps lower the barriers of entry into developing systems that operate within Discord’s ecosystem.

"Discord's API allows developers to create and maintain [apps] that perform complex tasks, such as ours that generates images and collects votes,” Lacey added. “It supports high-volume user interactions, demonstrating scalability and reliability. Furthermore, the API’s seamless integration with other systems offers developers the versatility to innovate and create more engaging user experiences." 

In essence, the Discord API provides developers with the tools necessary to build interactive, engaging, and dynamic communities. Lacey goes on to say, "By facilitating easy, interactive, and dynamic user engagement, the Discord API creates a lively and active environment for developer feedback. This, in turn, boosts user participation and fosters a sense of camaraderie, making the process of feedback collection efficient and enjoyable."

Real-time Feedback

The ability to collect feedback in real-time has been incredibly helpful in discovering the difference between the expected use of StableDreamer and the unexpected paths users may naturally fall into when left to their own devices. We’re all human, after all! (Except for the robots…)

This feedback loop has provided the StableDreamer team with detailed insight into new opportunities that can be utilized to improve their app’s experience. Discord’s ability to foster real-time feedback collection has enabled the StableDreamer team to identify patterns of behavior among users and understand their preferences and needs more effectively. 

Thanks to this deeper understanding of how users interact with StableDreamer, Stability.ai can easily identify areas of improvement and optimize the app’s functionality to better meet the evolving needs of its users. The insights garnered from real-time feedback collection have also allowed Stability.ai developers to remain competitive by identifying emerging user trends and adapting to them in real time. 

Bug Identification and Resolution

Discord is a place where communities who come together under shared interests can discuss the pros, and sometimes cons, of the things they love the most. When the shared interest is an app for Discord, its official server becomes the perfect place for troubleshooting issues and improving overall satisfaction. The opportunity of having a back-and-forth conversation with users as they are experiencing an issue live in the moment is incredibly valuable and insightful to the development process, and nearly impossible to replicate in other spaces of the internet. 

It’s important to continue to collect feedback from your users throughout the development process as their perspectives can change over time. The more time users spend with your app, the more easily they’ll be able to help you identify trends and patterns that can be used to further enhance the user experience for everyone.

Discord vs. Traditional Feedback Methods

Discord has incredibly high levels of engagement and interaction, so it’s the ideal place to gather real-time feedback from users. When collecting user sentiment, organic conversations can lead to higher-quality feedback and, when implemented properly, a nice boost in your app’s quality. 

Stability.ai’s team has been able to collect plenty of feedback through Discord, including from both live conversations in channels dedicated to feedback, and within spaces that let community members show off their own generated images and provide feedback on what outputs they prefer. This approach has been incredibly helpful to the Stability.ai team in understanding user sentiment and identifying potential roadblocks that they may not have noticed on their own.

Some positive feedback that the Stability.ai team received from their StableSociety user DylanWalker is “the ‘Aspect’ function is really helpful for making images for any size. Really helped create my new desktop background!" 

Thanks to their server on Discord, Stability.ai has real examples of functionality that their users are enjoying and how they are incorporating the app into their daily lives. 

LUNA, another StableSociety community member, highlighted the app's ability to listen, and in their words, “execute prompts brilliantly.” LUNA emphasized the importance of “flexibility and the ability to do anything.” They stated, "In my opinion, flexibility and ability to listen, interpret and execute is what makes [an AI] model good, not an inherently pretty or unique art style or a specific purpose, but the ability to do anything or most things you can think of." Based on this feedback, Stability.ai was able to understand the importance of the quality of their app – not just the images it renders.

In contrast to traditional feedback methods, Discord provides a more engaging experience for community members, leading to higher-quality feedback and a more satisfied user base.

Developer and Brand Considerations

Discord is a platform with a large and diverse community, consisting of people from all over the world. Everyone is unique, has their own background, and different levels of technical expertise. It’s important to tap into the unique insights of your app’s community! Since Discord is a more relaxed space, community members will likely be very honest in their feedback, providing developers and brands with a unique advantage in obtaining pure and unfiltered commentary.

So be sure to involve your users in the development process! Bringing your community together can lead to increased engagement and loyalty among the user community as they feel a sense of ownership and investment in your product. Follow the steps of the Stability.ai team, and you'll ultimately lead your team to a better product and a more successful future.

Topics:
No items found.