A few weeks ago, I talked about how different people react to change, and how my parents are talking about getting a tablet. I finally had an opportunity to check in with my dad today and see how it was going with the TouchPad I had loaned him – I had given it to him one afternoon when neither of us had a lot of extra time, gave him a quick run down of the apps I had installed for him, and sent him on his way. He walked away, and I knew that he was going to have problems not knowing how to do certain things. Sure enough, that was the basic thing he told me today – that he had tried to do some simple things and couldn’t figure out how.
In the few minutes today I talked to him, he had mentioned he was trying to open and edit a Word document and also print it. Those are pretty simple tasks for him to do on his laptop, and he assumed that they would be simple on the tablet – and with a little instruction they will be simple tasks. However, I don’t think I installed an app that he could print from, and even if I had, I don’t know if his printer is even setup on their network. Once the tablet is setup correctly, that task would be as simple as getting the file onto the tablet (Dropbox, email, etc.), editing the file (Quick Office, Office Suite Pro, etc.), saving the file, and then printing the file. But if you don’t know what you are doing, there is a minefield of mistakes you can make. That’s why I think that tablets should come with an instruction manual.
Now, the things I say here could easily apply to computers, smartphones, and lots of other tech devices, but I want to focus on the tablets. I believe that there are a lot of people that buy tablets who are not using them anywhere near the capacity that they could, and that the only reason this is happening is because they have no one to teach them how. Most tablets come with very little in the way of instructions, and it is usually limited to how to turn them on, charge them, and what the different buttons and ports are. You might get pointed to an app store or email client, but after that, you are on your own. This leaves a lot of people wondering where to go next.
I can’t tell you the number of times I have looked at someone’s smartphones and noticed that everything on the homescreens is exactly the way it was when they took it out of the box. Not a widget or shortcut had been moved, and a lot of these people have used their phones for months already. Heck some of them even stare at me blankly when I mention the word widget. Andreas has been posting a lot of tutorials on how to do some of the basic things on an Android tablet, but if people don’t know where to look for tutorials they might never find them. Instead they are left with a tablet that rarely gets used and a wonderment of why so many people are raving about them.
Now, it’s easy for me to point out the shortcomings of this system and not give an idea of how to fix it. The problem is that the ever-changing tablet market makes it hard to have a good resource to send people to. I think one of the best ideas would be something like the online classes that Lynda.com does. Every tablet manufacturer could include a certificate for a free Android or iOS basics class that would take you a little more in depth into your tablet. Lynda.com could provide this for free to the manufacturers with the hopes of maybe selling some advanced classes once people use their site to learn more about their new tablet. The problem with this is, of course, the wide variety of Android tablets. You couldn’t get hardware specific, because every tablet would be different, and even some of the software would function differently due to the company adding their own software – but it could still give tutorials that are Android-specific, like adding and editing widgets, or finding new apps.
Of course the easiest answer could be to simply send them to Pocketables. This could be a bit overwhelming for someone not familiar with the blogosphere, so maybe you should pick out a few choice articles for them to get started. If you need some links to start with, here are a few helpful places to start. And I’ll be sure to check in again after I have given my dad a good lesson on how to do some of the basics on the TouchPad.
How to customize an Android home screen, part 1: Launcher basics
How to customize an Android home screen, part 2: Shortcuts and icons
I didn’t even read the manual that came with the IPad, I just googled anything that I wanted to know.
That’s exactly what I do too, but I know a lot of people that don’t think like us
I personally think that there should be a tutorial that shows up upon the phone’s first bootup by the consumer. Of course, this would come with the option to skip it and view it later, but at least people would have somewhere to go when they want to know what to do with their phone. It would be interactive, simple, short and informative; teaching the user the basics of Android and pointing them to a forum or website (here haha) that would help them with their specific device or the overall android operating system.
That’s a pretty good idea. That puts all the pressure on the manufacturer to create that tutorial for each device. Plus it could be hardware specific, and like you said, completely skippable. I still don’t see the companies doing it, but it’s a great idea. Sometimes I feel like once you spend the money, and in the case of phones sign the contract, the companies don’t really care whether you can use that device to its full potential because they already have the most important thing, your money.
“…the companies don’t really care whether you can use that device to its full potential because they already have the most important thing, your money.”
Exactly. Every once in a while you get a nice small company that tries to be supportive, but usually it feels like it’s all about the money.
I feel like the beginning tutorial wouldn’t be that hard to do though. Android is an open source project, and Google is….OK at customer support (right?). Google could put out a simple application that has the basic structure of the tutorial already made, and the manufactures could take that and add their own screenshots or features easily. This tutorial could be an application, a web page, etc.
Hmm, for some reason I forgot to press the reply button or the request didn’t go through right… treat that as a reply to you, Bryan Faulkner
It seems that when it comes to customer support the best companies at it are the ones that you pay the most for their products, and I don’t think that the amount of money you pay should net you more customer support. Apple is great at it, but you pay an arm and a leg for their products so they better have great support. I think that’s backwards thinking.
The tutorial itself probably wouldn’t be that difficult, it would be a matter of selling the importance of it to the manufacturers. I don’t believe they think educating their customers is very important or they would be doing it already.
It’s interesting how different manufacturers handle this. When I got my Nexus One Smartphone (my first Android Device), no instructions were included. I made a lot of assumptions based on years of computing and everything worked out but it took me longer to figure out the “Long Press” since this is not something you do on non-touch devices.
.
In contrast, when I ordered the Amazon Kindle, it came with a detailed electronic tutorial covering both the hardware and software. Amazon, known for great customer service, approached their customer base in a much different manner.
.
I should point out that years ago, during the late 80s, every computer I bought came with a detailed *book* (some as long as 300-400 pages) covering every aspect of the OS – including writing batch files, detailed instructions on the command-line, details on all included apps, etc. If you read the whole book, you were essentially a DOS expert. At some point (with the arrival of Windows GUI), detailed instructions on OS operations ceased. Unfortunately, this has been the norm since about ’95…
I totally agree with you.