Talking to your users

A public roadmap is a promise-shaped object. Most of the work in running one well is in the wording around it, not in the software.

Where to put the link

Somewhere people already are when they have an opinion: an empty state, a settings page, the footer of a help centre, the bottom of a release note.

Avoid a modal on first run. Somebody who has not used your product yet has no roadmap opinions worth collecting, and you have spent their attention.

What to say next to it

Say what the board is for and what happens to what they write. Three sentences is plenty:

Roadmap. See what we are working on, vote for what matters to you, and suggest what is missing. We read everything. Votes help us order the list; they do not decide it.

That last sentence is the one that saves you later.

What a vote does and does not mean

Be explicit that a vote is input, not a purchase.

Roadmaps get resented when people infer a contract that was never offered: a highly-voted item that has not shipped after a year reads as a broken promise if you never said what votes were for.

Wording that holds up:

• “Votes tell us what to look at first.”
• “We ship on a mix of votes, effort and where the product is going.”

Wording that does not:

• “The most-voted feature ships next.”
• Anything with a date in it.

Say what happens after a suggestion

Somebody who writes a suggestion and hears nothing assumes it went nowhere, and they are usually right.

If the board takes suggestions, say what the queue is:

Suggestions go to the team before they appear on the board. If we publish yours, you will hear about it.

Then keep that promise, which mostly means keeping the moderation queue short.

Statuses are user-facing copy

Your column names are read by people who do not work at your company. “Under review” is clear. “Triage” and “Icebox” are internal words that read as a filing cabinet.

The declined column deserves particular care. It is the most useful column on the board — it is where people find out the answer is no without having to ask — and it is the one most likely to read as dismissive. A one-line reason on a declined entry does more for goodwill than the entry’s absence would.

If you use anonymous identity

You cannot notify anonymous participants, so the board itself has to carry the information. Keep entries current, because for those users the board is the only channel you have.