I have been using Dovetail for user research for a few months now, and it’s a fantastic tool hands down. I haven’t used any other research tool before, and our team was on the manual side of the process for a long time :D

We still take manual notes, (Can’t completely trust technology!) then we also tried Webex transcripts, but Dovetail has helped us automate and increase the pace of the analysis process dramatically. In this article, I will try to flesh out some areas I feel Dovetail can still improve 🤞

01. Text Selection inside the yellow tags is frustrating

As you can see, the selected text inside the yellow tags is hardly distinguishable compared to other colors. 😐

02. Low Contrast of Yellow Tag Text

The white color text inside the yellow tags is hard to read. this is a no-brainer when it comes to meeting the color contrast accessibility requirements. Come on…. Dovetail 🤦

03. Placement of Error Messages

When I was trying to log in, I entered the wrong password, and the error message appeared on the bottom-right edge of the screen like a trivial toast. I barely noticed it. It would have been nice if the text field feedback messages were placed near those respective fields.

04. Auto Transcription is sometimes funny to read 😜

It’s light years better than Webex transcripts but still can be improved. there is an option to add custom words before the transcription starts, but we still get some funny words, in the end, irrespective of accents and dialects. I kinda get the ‘lorem ipsum sketch plugin’ vibe, if you know what I mean 😉

05. A Bookmark feature would be nice 😇

There are times when you have long paras with nothing specific to mark or tag. In those instances, when you get back after a break, you kinda have to read through them again. It would be nice if you have a bookmarking feature to get back from the exact word you left off last time.