First and foremost: all opinions are our own and are subjective.
We go through 3 stages, more or less, that’s how we approach tools generally:
- We look at a product, get a first impression, see if it’s something we could use or like (Hype)
- We take a look at the reviews, get information about the product and evaluate if it can work for us (Preview)
- Finally, we decide to go for it and we try it out (Review)
Sometimes we might rush into Reviews or find out late about something we were about to miss because we initially didn’t give it much attention, that happens!
Hype
Hype means we just scrolled through the page, checked their website, read a few reviews/comments and that’s about it. It doesn’t mean we gave a thorough look at the product.
We measure it with proper certified Hype Terms: “Remarkable”, “Uhm” and “NA”. We cannot disclose the third-party responsible for certifying those terms.
- “Remarkable” is something that impresses us, and we usually want to proceed with a Preview or Review.
- “Uhm” means we are intrigued but not sure whether it’s something for us.
- “NA” it’s something we have no current opinion on, or we don’t think it fits our interests and use-cases.
Obligatory note: These are not only our opinions on tools, but also they heavily depend on what we do and need. Some tools might be NA to us, but could be awesome for someone else.
Preview
A preview means we’ve followed the deal for a couple of days, checked videos, webinars, reviews and comments, read their documentation, noted for what is missing or what’s a plus offering and finally, we have a rough idea of what the tool can offer and if the deal price is appealing to us.
A preview is extremely important, and in certain cases we do not have a separate Preview, but we do a Review that consists of these same items as the Preview, plus the ones regarding a Review.
Our Preview sets our expectations for the Review, it tells us how the tool seems to place in its own niche, whether we should expect something amiss. A Review absolutely needs proper preparation for it to stay on track, and that’s our Preview.
The way we usually measure Previews is with 3 major parameters: Presentation, Features and Price.
Presentation
- We look at their deal page, comments, reviews and their answer:
- Do they answer quickly?
- Do they follow up properly and professionally?
- We then look at their website:
- how is it?
- Is the tool/software/something often updated?
- Does it have a change log to note development speed?
- Does it have a roadmap?
- Is the Documentation extensive and comprehensible?
Features
- Is something missing that’s frequently requested but is not part of the tool?
- If so, how important is it?
- What are the core features?
- How is the core product when compared to eventual competitors?
Price
What we do here is we compare the deal offer and price to their normal price, and see whether it’s a good deal, pricing wise, or if there’s something that’s missing, and we consider a core feature, or if eventual limitations are low or well-placed. This varies a lot and depends on the tool.
Review
A Review is a more in-depth look that allows us to try it out, see if it aligns with the expectations we had after the Preview and if it’s something we’d want to add to our stacks and workflows.
If we have not had a Preview for that particular tool, the motions we go for the Preview are how we begin our Review.
After that, once our expectations are set, we like to use the product when possible, or we use it beforehand, and we showcase what we think of the features and how we liked it. So, a Review has two main objectives:
- Confront our Expectations with Reality
- Learn how to use the tool and consider Ease of use and anomalies, such as bugs
Together that forms our rough score.
Obviously it takes a lot of time to get in-depth knowledge about anything, but we believe this approach serves us when we consider what to purchase for our own use, and it could be very useful insight fot others in our same boat.
