Reading note cards

I have 2 accounts and make scripted products,I also have a shop that makes clothing for scripted prim parts with a texture installer.


A message to the new users and some old,If you do not read a note card you can not find out how it works.
Most sold scripted objects (at least all mine) have detailed info on how to use the product.

What I run into (and not alone,the echos thew SL with many designers) is people do not read their note cards,at all in any way.
the just rez the object or wear it and and try to figure it out,when it dose not do as they want the IM the maker with lil short messages.

Here is one from last week I went threw.
Girl post in a popular group that is the update group I make a products for,the designer has made kits for people to make clothing to work with his prim implants.
She went to their group and started bad mouthing my brand claiming it states the clothing is for implants but dose not really work and im a fraud.
So I IM this idiot and ask her if she read her note cards on how to use a clothing installer (btw,you just wear the installer prim and click it,all done,how easy is that right?)
She tells me that she did read the cards and my product is a fake ,so I tp her to my shop and we go over it step by step.
Well you can image what happen,,,,WOW IT WORKED!! Looks like lack of reading and being honest are not her high points....

Then she spouts off that the reason the SL shops have lower sales in SL lately (once again not a fact as my sales are just peachy) is the fact no one make this info easy to find out.

Lets recap now,The note card explained to her to wear and click,when you wear the prim it says to owner "ok now click me to install clothing layer"

what do we need to do? hire people in every town in the world to come to your house and make you read a note card???

Read note cards,they tend to tell you how to use things....

If not in your language use one of the many many many free online translator sites,paste in the note card data and choose you language.....And I know some do not work great,But I been doing this for years and always get what I need to know using them.

sad sad these days....

Just a fact of life, Charlot. Sadly, it's going to happen.

not a fact of life,when I buy something in RL and like 99% of the people I read on how it works,it cost me RL money.

Fact of SL life,I Do agree with you.
pennies on the net do not seem to have the same effect on a buyers involvement in learning the product.

And you are right it will always happen,But this is my way of pointing out the problem....

If I am really lucky 1 person will read this and buy something and read a notecard after reading this....One can only dream...

Anyone that tries this with my core product has a rapid learning experience about reading notecards.

In the main shop next to the vendor is a HUGE warning, about 5m x 5m and the instructions as to how to use.

When they rez the box, it has this as part of the message STOP! DO NOT JUST UNBOX AND WEAR THE FOLDER CONTENT!, along with where to find help, a link to a support group, links to video tutorials and tells them that shop assistants are often available to help.

I send the same information to them in local chat.

The instructions, in eight languages state the same.

If after totally ignoring all FOUR warnings, they unbox and wear and are in an RLV enabled viewer (my main target customer), the result is that they are blindfolded (unable to take it off), gagged (unable to IM friends for help or take it off), bound arms and legs (unable to move, TP or take them off).

The final thing I do is have an instructions HUD which if they have just worn all the content of the folder now sits across the majority of their screen basically saying "Well you just wore the content of the folder and now this is your predicament... here's what you have to do next..."

I feel that I have done just about all that I can to provide prior warning lol.

Way back when, in the days I thought spammy sexual organs were fun, I used to belong to the Xcite! update group, which is, or was then, a constant stream of complaints from people about how they couldn't get the updaters to work and stuff kept on breaking and it was all a con and Xcite! were a bunch of crooks and so on.

I rather upset a lot of people in the group when I commented, perfectly truthfully, that the one time I'd had difficulty updating something from Xcite! it was my own stupid fault because I'd not bothered to read the notecard properly, and that this was an expensive mistake I didn't intend to make again.

However, I conceded, I was probably the only person in SL who ever messed things up and broke them because she hadn't read the instructions and that I accepted that when everyone else had problems it was always either the maker's or LL's fault and never theirs.

I do not believe 99% of people read manuals. It´s more like 1% that read a manual before trying out how something works.
Only when getting stuck some people might take a look at the manual.

http://www.useit.com/alertbox/activeuserparadox.html

Write it on the box that they rezz to unpack their items and make that box 10x10x10 or 20x20x20

Hi all,

Just thought you might like to know that at least one consumer will (9 times out of 10) read the manual.

In sl anyway...rl, different story, depending on the item, heh.

Whenever i get something new within sl, i will generally take a look at any notecards that are included in the folder. I mean, all i need to do is take a quick read to see if there's any important instructions...ie, colour changing, or whatever else.

When it comes to resizing, i take a glance to see what method is used, and will then forget about the n/c unless there is something else on it i need (i like to think i'm fairly competant with both prim resizing and script rezing).

I feel for all of you designers that have that problem with people that don't read the instructions. Thankfully, any time i've had a problem, it's not been somthing related to no reading a notecard.

Thanks for actually taking the time to write out those manuals, and include them with your products.

*hugs*...from a (marginally) sensible consumer (i hope )

It's very common for people not to read the instructions, and sometimes to say that they've read them. One way of making them read is to tell them to go through the instructions again and then tell you the part that they don't understand. I'm afraid that I have little patience with people like that.

It's usually best to design things so that they are easy and intuitative to use. Obviously the complexity of some things precludes this. But, for instance, where the OP refers to instructions to "wear and then click", it would be a very simple matter to script the object so that whatever action is initiated by clicking is also automatically initiated by wearing it.

Given the intent of LL is to raise concurrency (and your customers) by 10 and 100 times then perhaps it is best to evaluate your business model and how you provide content. Because if you spend an inordinate amount of time on support today then you won't have time when business is booming.

Find ways to make it so it is easy. "Idiot Proof" the product. Use tutorial videos. Make comics for training. Whatever it takes make it so people want to take the time to learn before pressing buy buttons. Otherwise your business will suffer down the road.

Just to make a semi-related point from a consumer perspective:

What is intuitive to (for?) one person, might not neccessarily be the same for some one else.
Sometimes the manuals help...sometimes they don't.

My vampire clan recently took to using a combat meter. Now, i'm not overly familiar with them, because I don't generally like metered combat in sl. But i decided to give it a look anyways.

Now we were a group of about 20 people, most of us not having used this particular meter before (metalife meter or something like that). One person was well versed in them, and described the command for changing the titler. Within a couple of minutes, i noticed that everyone had succeeded in making changes, so i decided to give it a go.

I followed the instructions i was given, they were clear....nothing happened.
i changed them slightly...nothing happened.
i copied the given instructions and changed the text as neccessary...nothing happened.
(this person also had the instructions in the titler)

Several minutes passed...I pulled out the manual...

Tried about twice more...finally something happened (yay, happy ending)

The instructions were simple, i followed them...still had trouble (thankfully, was able to figure them out, but not entirely sure what i did.)
This also proves that it's virtually impossible to make anything idiot proof...(i've also intuitively worn stuff that should have been rezzed...ie, updaters for products, because they DIDN'T come with a manual...heh)

And I've intuitatively worn things that proceeded to tell me "You're supposed to rez me on the ground, you idiot" (or words to that effect).

And in that same line of thought, I make my notecards short and to the point without any fluff (aside from a quick thanks for purchasing the product). I also endeavor to make my scripted items as easy and intuitive as possible, making the notecard virtually unnecessary anyway. An intuitive interface combined with a VERY short instruction notecard goes a long way to prevent those pesky "how does this thing work" IMs.

Seconded. If it's that complicated I don't want it. I generally read the note cards but if they are complicated and long drawn out novels I'm likely to close them without reading. It would be nice if creators of items would give the same instructions as contained in purchased item pack BEFORE the customer purchased the product. Especially for those complicated messes that generate all these headaches to begin with. That way I (or the potential purchaser) can make up my mind if I want to spend my time learning how to use the item, wear the item, rezz the item, change or modify the item...........but I've seen almost no creator do that.

In my mind, if your product is so complicated that it requires special instructions it's up to you, as a creator, to provide that set of instructions BEFORE the item is purchased. If I see a product that is obviously scripted and appears to require me to interact with the scripts in a way I'm not familar with and there is no instructions available before I buy the product.......you probably just lost a sale. I'm not likely to buy anything just to get the note card on how to use what I bought.

From my understanding, this goes against the rules of "being a man".

Hmmm... I do this, but I'm pretty sure I lose sales because of it.

Once somebody buys an item, they have some motivation to get it to work. In contrast, *before* they've pressed "Buy", even the slightest bit of complication is a disincentive--and until they're in a position to follow along with their own copy, anything sounds complicated.

I've never done this, but I suspect the best solution to the problem is to raise prices tenfold, thereby increasing the customer's motivation to get it to work, and probably their tolerance (even expectation) that something has enough features to require some investigation.

That's probably why, to my knowledge, I've never purchased anything from you. Sorry.

That's a *brilliant* response to people who just wear a folder!!


I've come across makers who have obviously lost patience with people who don't read notecards.
- They bury a code word somewhere towards the end.
- They mention this at the start of the notecard and say that they will not give support unless the code word is mentioned in the request. They also mention this in their Profiles.

I'm very slow to buy any scripted object that does not give me a notecard before I buy.
I've seen enough vendors do this that I've come to expect it.

It's true that I might decide not to buy based on the notecard.
The merchant might consider that they would therefore lose a sale, but in reality they would have avoided getting a dissatisfied buyer - who might never consider buying from then again and who might bad-mouth their products.

It's okay. Very few have.

But I think you may have misunderstood: I *do* give out those notecards with full instructions before purchase, as you recommended. It scares people off. (If you meant that this is the sort of thing that scares you off, then yeah: never mind.)

Some things just can't be that simple to operate, and those things aren't for everybody, in SL or RL I guess.

It's the same in RL. People don't read. I've found that if I just read the manual for new software -- nothing else, just read it -- I am suddenly an "expert" because hardly anyone else does that. It's just how people are.

Well, I just re-read your post............and I DID misunderstand. I'm sorry I jumped like I did. I don't know what you make in SL but if it were something I would use or want AND you are offering the notecard explaning how to use your product I would be much more inclined to purchase your item..........even if it were complicated. But, with me, I'm here for the fun. RL is complicated enough. That's not to say if I wanted something specific and that something happens to be "complicated" I won't buy or get it. It's a matter of knowing in advance what I'm getting into.

I don't think I'm alone.............so I commend you for being up front with the notecards. I happen to think that will get your further in your efforts for success than the folks who take the opposite tack.........."let them find out AFTER the purchase". Those people got the money and it's not their fault it's over someones head or too complicated to mess with.

PS..........
IM me in world. I'd like to know what you sell. If not for me then for a very good "gadget" type friend of mine.

I read notecards if they start with instructions.

But if they start with advert spam, I get glossy-minded and just close them or skim down and close them.