molly.com
Thursday 18 December 2003
real unreal
Dear Real,
I’m a computer book author and columnist writing about your products. I went to real.com this morning and was extremely upset to find that there is no obvious place on this web site to get detailed product information without downloading your product first. Instead, I had to spend over twenty minutes figuring out that the information I wanted wasn’t at real.com, but realnetworks.com.
Doesn’t it seem logical that people are going to show up at real.com looking for information? After all, that particular URL is where you send everyone to download products. So what’s the detailed product information doing on another site altogether?
This is poor usability and terrible for PR purposes, I can assure you. If the press can’t get info from a site then how can you expect consumers to do so? Or maybe that’s your point.
I’m offended by your poor web site and the unacceptable practice of not giving obvious, easily found, and fully detailed product information prior to a download.
So what I intend to do is use the Real.com web site as an example of what not to do in terms of usability. A perfect case study in how to piss off your web site visitors, how fortunate for me!
Usability means getting the audience to what they came for. After that wasted twenty minutes I was finally able to have my questions answered when I inadvertently followed a link that brought me to the site at realnetworks.com. I then quite easily found the information. But what the hell is it doing on a separate web site from your primary download site?
Oh, and by the way, you need to test your designs in browsers other than IE. There are a few of us who choose not to use that particular browser as our personal browser. Your site falls apart in important places, like media navigation links. Real has been a part of the web for so very long it should be paying more attention to such issues. Shame on you, Real.
I cannot recommend your products to buyers if I can’t find detailed information on those products. Please make detailed product information immediately available prior to any download. Doing otherwise is unacceptable, stupid, and possibly unethical.
Have a real nice day.
Filed under: software
Posted by: site admin | 6:03 am |
December 18th, 2003 at 7:46 am
Way to go! Let us know if you need some people to test out stuff for you!
Keep up the good work!
December 18th, 2003 at 8:47 am
Nice flurry. I especially liked the hook to the body “Please make detailed product information immediately available prior to any download. Doing otherwise is unacceptable, stupid, and possibly unethical.”
Unless more people do the same as you, I doubt Real (or any other company with a similarly bad Web presence) will do anything to change. Still, people need to keep nagging in order to effect change on the Web. Any elsewhere, for that matter.
December 18th, 2003 at 9:48 am
I wouldn’t recommend Real products to anyone, anyway. Quicktime and, heck, even Windows Media, do it so much better, and less intrusively to boot.
Just my $0.02.
December 18th, 2003 at 10:52 am
Yikes! I sure hope you don’t go to my site any time soon.
I’ve always felt that this site went out of it’s way to confuse me. It’s a shame to see that things are no different today.
December 19th, 2003 at 10:22 am
Yeah - and yer all poop-heads, and uh… you stink. And your mother dresses you funny.
Yeah. Oh - uh, and… I guess that’s it.
December 20th, 2003 at 6:09 am
This is becoming the experience everywhere of late. I am constantly searching for some application to do something or another for a client that wants at least three options. Nobody says anything descriptive about their products. They make claims the product can do generic X, but no details. If you want details you fill in a form and then a sale rep calls you. The sales rep has no idea about the product details either. The sales rep most often states you will need to talk to a technical sales rep. They will only give information if they come and see you.
Why do companies have anything other than a tech sales rep. I am quite sure nobody is going to call and ask what color box the product is shipped in, which could be the only question the sales rep could answer. I don’t understand why tech reps can not answer questions over the phone, or atleast not without much cajoling.
It seems like a waste of money to have these people on staff when a matrix, tech specs, and clearly written information about the product would server most of us much better.
December 20th, 2003 at 7:16 am
I can’t believe that there’s any use for ‘real’ products anymore with Windows Media and Quicktime (which I also hate because it is so presumptuous as to think I am willing to give it permission to place some program in the run section of my registry everytime it’s launched, but that’s another story)
There are only a couple of sites that I’ve been to that use real exclusively. One was a major media outlet (go figure) an you had to register and PAY to see the videos. NO THANKS!!! I’m not THAT interested.
Hey real, GET REAL!!!!!
Molly, WAY TO GO!!!!! Give ‘em hell!
December 20th, 2003 at 9:35 am
Besides the obvious hassle Real customers have to cope with every day, there’s another thing to mention - a bit off-topic:
In today’s society of standards and the MPEG-4 standard getting stronger every day, Apple’s QuickTime right now is the only complete solution to author, edit and play compliant MPEG-4 content (and related content like 3GPP for mobile media, etc.). With the 6th generation of the product, the focus is on standardized content that is playable in any MPEG4-compliant player.
Real and Windows Media however choose to stay proprietary. A lot of us know the reasons why this isn’t good. And economically speaking, Real is almost dead (from a consumer point of view at least) and Windows Media only is so wide-spread because it’s bundled with Windows. Go figure.
December 21st, 2003 at 7:35 am
Vanderwal -
I completely agree. I have one tech support client (used to do it all the time, but switched entirely to Web design) and the software that their franchise uses is confusing, badly documented, and poorly implemented.
They can’t even set up their own computers or assign their own IP addresses. When they hired me, the software/hardware company had them in a stranglehold. They wouldn’t offer information, they wouldn’t explain what costs were for, nothing. And I think this is just a way of doing business for some of these folks. It’s how they make money.
In today’s world, companies like this software/hardware vendor should provide usable, readable, understandable options and instructions for end users / clients. There’s not excuse for doing otherwise.
Furthermore, tech support should be geared toward helping the client make decisions / alterations rather than selling onsite service. The franchisee hired me to break this stranglehold, and I’ve done a decent job of it, but there’s no reason they should have had to.
Don’t get me wrong - business is business and I want as much of it as I can get. However, an end user should be able to set up a few PC’s and network them.
December 22nd, 2003 at 7:37 am
Great comments. One of the things I deal with every day is also how unfair resources are distributed. Whenever I call a software company in my role as an engineer for a very well known Fortune 500 company I will at least get the answers I am looking for… if I call without mentioning my company service is third class - at best.
Usability of websites, software, heck everything I believe will be a big differentiator in the future. If you haven’t read Cooper’s “The Inmates are running the Asylum” I can only recommend it. Good insight on usability…
February 20th, 2004 at 8:43 am
Real player… I hate it. But is there another program to play .rm files?!
Fly across the universe!
May 4th, 2004 at 4:50 am
Hehe remind me never to get on the wrong side of Molly.
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