Hello Web Assist officers and decision makers,
I've voiced my opinion on the whole WebAssist concept before, but will just add general agreement to what the other people are saying here in this forum.
My expertise is essentially marketing and what I've been seeing on these forums is nothing short of amazing and revolutionary from a business marketing point-of-view. You have products that many of us have used for years. Then last year you made some sort of big shift in documentation and support - and that disappointed many of us. Yet - you released some new products, which show great promise.
And here's where you need to pay attention - You have a dedicated enough group of users that some of us have spent hours taking the time to tell you how to improve. We haven't given up on your company or your products! How fantastic is that? Most disappointed customers will simply walk away from a brand if they're disappointed. They won't invest any time in trying to help the company improve the brand/products. You have a truly great brand in the making.
Your products are so close to being perfect time-savers for web developers. I just feel there's a huge disconnect on who you think your customers are, and the level of explanations and how-tos needed to make your complicated software usable.
I point again to Adobe as a prime example of a software company that produces extremely complex, but useful (and now essential) software. They never underestimate how complicated their software is to use, and offer an extreme overkill of documentation and videos and how-tos that cater to every level of user experience.
There was a precursor to your company that made what was called the Adobe Dreamweaver Developer's Toolkit. This was a SEAMLESS tie-in to Dreamweaver. It was super simple and fast to use. Almost bug-free. Unfortunately when Adobe dropped support and development for this perfect product, many of us turned to WebAssist. And we expected your products to work as simply and easily as this other Dreamweaver extension did. Boy has it been a rude awakening! I have literally spent MONTHS - and I truly mean this - MONTHS trying to do with your products, what it took me a day to do with the ADDT. I'm still not entirely successful - but haven't given up. Because you're all I've got. No-one else is making these kinds of Dreamweaver extensions.
To recap - your products are perfect in concept - but execution, support and documentation have MUCH to be desired. Essentially there are a lot of bugs in the products, and these bugs aren't fully documented nor addressed in any means except hunting and pecking through support message boards.
But I'm not giving up on the products and will continue to use them because they fulfill an essential need for me. (Because I'm a front-end developer/online marketer forced to do back-end large scale development due to recessionary budget realities.) I'm sure I'm not alone here. And that's why companies need your products. But life would be so much easier if the reality of your products execution & ease of use matched your advertised & marketed descriptions.
Thanks a lot.
Carlene
- And on a side-note may I add that Jason Byrnes and Dani and Eric Mittman and many of your support team are TOP NOTCH! Please give them all raises. ; )
