I’ve been looking around, off and on, for a decent piece of test management software to replace the current piece of junk software that we use. This has involved visiting lots of ISV websites which have, frankly, made me miserable and ill-tempered. I'm starting to think that such a wondrous piece of software doesn't exist, but along the way I have compiled this list of nine top tips to help you people (ISVs) get it right, and which will help to persuade me to part with my cold, hard cash.

1. Get your Google search ranking sorted out. I use Google to search: I don’t use Yahoo, or MSN LiveSearch (or whatever it’s called), or AltaVista, or that new ex-google-employee pretender to the throne (cuil?), because it’s crap. I probably would use cuil if the search results were better because I quite like the idea, but for now, no. Now some of those others have quite a lot of market share, but I use Google, which has the most, so you should probably make sure you’re appearing towards the top of the search rankings there. Admittedly, by the standards of many internet users I’m remarkably patient in that I’ll go through three or four pages of search results before I give up, however, if you don’t appear on page 1 I’m going to assume your product isn’t great before I even visit your website. There’s a chance you’re doing yourself a huge injustice here… although from what I’ve seen of test management tools, and the companies that make them, I seriously doubt it.


2. For crying out loud put some bloody screenshots of the product on your website. Seriously. Hardly anybody does this and it baffles me. Is it because you’re too lazy, or are the products so butt ugly that you’re just embarrassed to subject them to the scrutiny of the world at large? I don’t want to have to download and install your product (assuming I even can, but I’m getting ahead of myself here) to find out what it looks like. Get this though, I don’t expect it to be a work of art necessarily (although pretty is nice), but I do expect it to look professional and like it might do what I want. Screenshots aren't the whole picture, and can be misleading, but they're a helpful extra layer of filtering. I admit that we (Red Gate) are not great at putting product screenshots on our website—somebody even wailed on me, quite justifiably, for not posting or linking to any screenshots in one of my previous posts, which I duly corrected. Generally we show one or two shots, but we’ve never done the gallery thing (IMO we should). Sure there are videos, and they do include a demo of the software, but when you’re looking to get an overview of what’s out there in terms of a particular type of product, and you're looking at ten different companies, it’s just nice to be able to click on a link and see a whole load of thumbnail screenshots that you can zoom in on; much quicker than watching videos. If it’s hard to get a glimpse of your software I’m going to assume it’s because it’s both ugly and crappy.


3. Do not make me sign up to anything, or fill out any big forms, or ask to call me, just so's I can see a demo of your product. All you're doing is putting up barriers that make it less likely I’m ever going to try your product, let alone spend any money with you. Put a video, or even a series of videos, on your website instead. If every OAP and their yappy little highland terrier can work out how to post videos on YouTube it ought not to be beyond the wit of a bunch of so-called software companies to put some demo videos of their products on their websites. Come on kids, it’s not rocket science.


4. If you do post up videos then make sure there’s actually a demo in there somewhere, and it’s not just a Powerpoint presentation with some gormless charisma vacuum pontificating on your philosophy of X, where X in this case is software test management. I don’t mind a bit of background at the beginning and a conclusion at the end, but I do expect you to get down and dirty with the software in there.


5. If you post videos in multiple formats, make sure they all work. This is particularly poignant when you’re looking at test management software. If your website doesn’t work properly this does not bode well.


6. It is not the year 2002. Internet Explorer market share is not 97%. It’s never likely to be 97% again. Nowadays, depending upon who you ask, it’s around 80% (and that might be a bit on the high side), and there are more people than ever on the web, so that 20% that don’t use it adds up to an awful lot of people. Geeks, who if you market test management software are likely a good chunk your target market, even if they have transmogrified into managers, are over-represented in that 20%. Please make sure your website works properly in all major browsers. And yes, I use Firefox.
   


7. Don’t stop me from downloading your product. I don’t mind having to fill out a really short form, or one with lots of optional fields, and I don't mind captchas, but don’t constantly hound me afterwards, and definitely don’t make me talk to a sales person before I can even download your software. I just don’t want to. Not before I've even tried it. At this point I’m about a million miles away from making any kind of purchase, and more than that, your sales pitch isn’t going to be able to persuade me to do so anyway: if I buy anything at all it will be on the basis of how well your software works and whether it fulfils my needs. Now I know how this goes; you’re trying to sell to senior types, VPs and the like, people who will never actually have to use your software. You’re probably not that interested in lowly Project Managers and the like, and on the face of it this looks like a good ploy. But think about it like this: as I wend my way merrily up the corporate ladder, do you think I’m going to have more time, or less time? Do you think I’m going to have more patience, or less patience with this kind of guff? Exactly.


8. It’s probably better if your website doesn’t look like it was designed somewhere behind the iron curtain, in the mid-80s. Again, a work of art isn’t necessary, but clean and professional is. And for goodness sake, drop the Times New Roman: it makes it look like it was designed by my gran. Sans serif fonts are the order of the day, both cleaner looking and easier to read. It takes about two minutes to knock up a style sheet that will banish all traces of Times New Roman from your site forever, which’ll be two minutes well spent believe me. And what's with all the dowdy colours? It doesn't have to look like the Merry Pranksters' schoolbus, but—I mean are you scared you'll die or something if you use a bright, cheerful colour here and there?
   


9. Finally, make sure your software isn’t crap. It’s so obvious, it shouldn’t even need saying, but… well, clearly it does. I mean just look around. There’s plenty of great software out there, but there’s also this overwhelming torrent of gashware—not malware, I mean stuff that is actually supposed to be useful but isn’t—that you have to wade through sometimes in order to find it. It’s a side-effect of the low cost of failure, as pointed out by Cory Doctorow: there’s more good stuff, but there’s also more crud, however if you actually want to have a successful piece of software it needs to be good.

And that’s it. If you do the above there’s a chance I might spend some money with you, and if you don’t there’s virtually no chance whatsoever, which doesn’t bother me in the slightest, because there’s someone out there who will be doing it and it’ll be them that gets my money and not you.