Bad/non-existent doco = Bad review!

When you develop ‘the next big thing’ or the latest ‘new shiny’, the last thing you want is a bad review of your baby. Especially a bad review from one of the world’s most well-known tech reviewers — David Pogue of The New York Times.

That’s just what happened to D-Link’s latest ’shiny’ — the D-Link DIR-685. The first page of Pogue’s review was pretty good — it was where he talked about all the clever things this thing does. However, by the end of the first page of his review, you get a hint that something is seriously wrong:

User-friendliness is the problem. Frankly, you’d have better luck figuring out how to fly the Space Shuttle.

Page two of his review is scathing. And his biggest complaint is directed at the lack of useful instructions for using this new thing:

Above all — and this is the mind-blowing part — D-Link is selling this very complex piece of consumer technology without a single word of instructions for the features that make it unique.

He goes on (and remember, David Pogue is a guy who gets his phone calls routed through to the people who matter, not like the rest of us mere mortals):

D-Link’s PR person suggested that the elusive instructions might be on the company’s Web site. (They weren’t.) In the end, it took a D-Link product manager a day to figure out how to work these features himself and supply me with the instructions.

Near the end of  his review he opines:

Isn’t it amazing that, after all these years, it still hasn’t dawned on companies like D-Link that simplicity sells? They still don’t get it: spending a little money up front —on hardware design, streamlined software, better manuals — would save a fortune in tech-support calls and store returns.

So, if you have a ‘new shiny’ you’re about to release to market (and about to send to tech reviewers to promote), make sure the instructions are written by a competent technical writer, are edited by an equally competent technical editor, and make sure you’ve done some serious usability testing of the finished product — stickers and all — with real users before you put that very expensive marketing campaign into action.

You cannot count the cost to your reputation of a bad review like this one from David Pogue.

(And if you’re looking for a good technical writer or editor, try the Society for Technical Communication [http://www.stc.org; their job board is at http://jobs.stc.org/home/index.cfm?site_id=360] or contact me and I’ll put you in touch with some highly competent people in the US or Australia who are out of work at the moment.)

[Links last checked July 2009]