The Usability of Unboxing


Home Signal Box.

I review a lot of tech kit. It is amazing just how bad the consumer experience is when you have a brand-new box in your hands. It can be as simple as difficult to open packaging, to the existential horror of a poorly translated manual. The first time a customer holds your product in their hands should be a moment of joy. Something to reinforce the notion that they have been wise with their investment. I'm going to walk through an example of a poor unboxing usability, in the hope that it will…

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Kindle and SureSignal - or how to find your Kindle's phone number


I've got a rather neat femtocell - the Vodafone SureSignal. It extends the 3G signal into my house by way of my broadband. To stop anyone leaching my broadband, you need to register "approved" phone numbers with the SureSignal. So - given that the Kindle has a Vodafone SIM card - how do we find the Kindle's phone number and register it with the SureSignal? There are three ways you can find your Kindle's phone number. None of them are "easy". Ask Amazon Open your Kindle, remove…

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