How My Mobile Phone Can Help Sell Your Product
May 12, 2010 5 Comments
I got a new mobile phone a while ago, and I am loving the user guide that came with it. There’s a printed quick start guide with a nice layout and attractive design, and a CD with two options: a user manual in PDF format, and an interactive tutorial.
The PDF is attractive and easy to read. Nice use of white space and a mix of b/w and color images. The screen shots are beautiful. It’s also a great example of crisp, clear writing. Well done. Makes me feel good about this product, and the quality of writing strengthens my opinion of Samsung.
As good as the PDF is, the interactive tutorial is actually fun to use. It’s a narrated step-by-step guide with sound and a transcript, which means you don’t have to pause the audio if you don’t catch everything the first time around. And it’s self-paced – if you’re not ready to move on, you don’t have to.
The interactive animation is great, too. Not as slick as Google’s Nexus demonstration, but Google doesn’t let you play with their virtual phone like Samsung does.
Interactive tutorials like this are a great way to blend multimedia with the printed word. It’s not as portable as a hard copy, but Samsung provides both options, which I’ve recommended before.
The tutorial and the PDF are available on Samsung’s web site. Think Samsung might be using them to promote their product? Not only are they making customers like me feel good about the phone we already bought, they’re reaching out to potential customers. See? Tech writing is a valuable marketing tool!
If you’re looking at using a multimedia format for your user guides, consider something like the format Samsung uses for its Flight mobile phone. It’s a great blend of text and animation, it’s actually fun and easy to use, and you don’t have to replay any videos if you didn’t catch something the first time around.
Bill Kerschbaum is the owner of Intext Writing, a writing service that creates user guides that your customers will love. That’s right, love. Email him for details.
About Bill Kerschbaum
I think it’s great to give credit where credit is due, and to commend companies when they do something to help customers use their products. And if their competitors see the praise, and improve their own product assistance, so much the better! (It might even make other companies who like it to hire more job-hunting technical communicators to accomplish it!)
Exactly. This is capitalism at its best – competition makes us better. And when it’s truly done well, it’s not about making a company wealthier, but better.
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