Feedback

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User feedback enables Mapbox to measure and continuously improve your users’ experiences across all the phases of a trip. Including feedback UI in your application allows users to provide useful feedback and effectively update data where required, get enough data points to make improvements, and determine where routing issues exist for review and correction. Mapbox’s goal is to make sure that any negative experience does not happen a second time, user input scales as we make corrections, and each navigation experience gets the attention it deserves. Mapbox’s Data Services team cares deeply about listening to users, making corrections to our service, and improving the quality of our feedback signals.

There are two options to show feedback UI in your application:

• Presenting a standard feedback form. This option uses feedback UI provided as part of MapboxNavigation package. Choose it if you want quickly integrate our well-tested feedback screen.
• Sending feedback programmatically. Use your own feedback UI implementation with feedback API from MapboxCoreNavigation package. Choose this option if you want higher customization and flexibility.

Presenting a standard feedback form

For the simplicity and speed of the Navigation SDK integration, we provide a ready-to-use feedback screen FeedbackViewController, which can be configured with a list of feedback categories. There are two available configurations: active navigation and passive navigation.

Active navigation configuration

This configuration shows feedback categories specific to active turn-by-turn navigation: incorrect routes, road closures, etc. See ActiveNavigationFeedbackType for the complete list of top-level categories.

If you already present a standard active navigation interface using NavigationViewController, a feedback button is located in the corner of the map by default. Tapping this button will open a standard feedback screen with the active navigation configuration. (To hide this button, set the NavigationViewController.showsReportFeedback property to false.)

If you have a custom navigation screen and don't use NavigationViewController directly, you can create FeedbackViewController in your code like this:

func feedbackButtonTapped() {
    let eventsManager = navigationService.eventsManager
    let feedbackViewController = FeedbackViewController(eventsManager: eventsManager)
    feedbackViewController.detailedFeedbackEnabled = true
    present(feedbackViewController, animated: true)
}

Passive navigation configuration

This configuration shows feedback categories specific to the passive navigation (also called free-drive mode): incorrect traffic, incorrect street names, missing roads, etc. See PassiveNavigationFeedbackType for the complete list of top-level categories.

Here is an example of presenting feedback view controller in passive navigation:

func feedbackButtonTapped() {
    let eventsManager = passiveLocationManager.eventsManager
    let feedbackViewController = FeedbackViewController(eventsManager: eventsManager, type: .passiveNavigation)
    feedbackViewController.detailedFeedbackEnabled = true
    present(feedbackViewController, animated: true)
}

Notes for both active and passive configurations

detailedFeedbackEnabled property controls whether the feedback view controller shows the second level of detail for feedback items. When disabled, feedback will be submitted on a single tap of a top-level category. When enabled, a first tap reveals an instance of FeedbackSubtypeViewController. A second tap on an item there will submit a feedback. More detailed user feedback will help us better understand how to correct issues.

Make sure to pass to the FeedbackViewController the events manager from the PassiveLocationManager or NavigationService if you use passive or active navigation respectively. Metadata from this navigation service will be included in the feedback, so we can investigate it easier. It is your responsibility to make sure that any metadata adheres to your privacy policy. You can inspect metadata using FeedbackEvent.contents property.

Sending feedback programmatically

Use this option if you want a higher level of customization and flexibility. In this case, feedback flow consists of the following steps:

1. As soon as a user taps your feedback button, capture current navigation metadata using NavigationEventsManager.createFeedback(). This method will return a FeedbackEvent that contains the information that will help us to debug the issue. Make sure that call this method as soon as possible, before presenting your custom feedback UI because by default it makes a screenshot of the visible application content – map, banner instructions, speed limits, etc. Push notifications and other applications won't be a part of the screenshot. We capture the UI state to better understand the issue. If you don't want to share the whole UI state of your application, pass screenshot of only Mapbox views to createFeedback(screenshotOption:) function.
2. Present your custom feedback UI and allow the user to select the feedback category and type in an optional description of the problem.
3. Depending on the navigation mode, you are using call NavigationEventsManager.sendActiveNavigationFeedback(_:type:description:) or NavigationEventsManager.sendPassiveNavigationFeedback(_:type:description:) to send the feedback to us for further investigation.

The FeedbackEvent that you obtained in the first step contains the captured navigation state and confirms to the Codable protocol, so you can write it to a file and submit it later. For example, you can ask the user to select a feedback category while driving but wait until later to enter description. This follow-up step can be distracting to a driver, so waiting until the user has arrived or even the next time they open the application can improve safety and result in more reliable feedback, depending on the audience of your application.

Additional notes

• By default Navigation SDK will not send feedback events to the server if the application is running on the Simulator. This allows developers to test feedback functionality and allow us to review feedback only from real users.

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