Craft version 2.4.5 came out today after more than six weeks since the previous release. Usually, releases come out every two to three weeks. I guess people’s expectations were pretty high after having waited so long.

Not only did the update bring very limited functionality, it broke a seemingly simple gesture that was used by a majority of users, mostly on the iPhone. As you might expect, this caused plenty of pushbacks on this. My guess is that it took the Craft team by surprise. Moreover, a new navigation sidebar design is also causing a some more pushback.

There is a recurring theme on Slack that people are tired of waiting for basic fixes while receiving questionable features they don’t see useful in general, not only for them. It’s a bit of a public relation crisis. Now my question, could this crisis be prevented? My short answer is yes. I gave a longer answer in my recent YouTube video… “A Proposal for Handling Users Feedback Differently” and published an article too.

Craft is a young company. They have plenty of things to learn, and managing expectations is certainly one of them. Managing or at the very least communicating a clear roadmap is another. It’s not enough to publish an article once a year on the company’s blog. Such messages need repetitive reminders and on more than one platform. If they would rather not share a roadmap, then they should probably stop using Slack and Circle. Those are discussion platforms where feedback and feature requests are expressed, albeit in a chaotic way.

What I’m starting to find really troubling and worrisome is the lack of fixes to obvious issues affecting many users, me included. And we are talking about long-standing issues here. Slack is full of users expressing their resentment for unfixed problems. Sure we get answers like “we’re on it”, “will check this out, thanks for the report”, “bla bla bla”. Actions speak louder than words. For the first time since I’m using Craft, I’m starting to wonder if I should reconsider my posture with my dependency on Craft.