Learn From Adobe - Don't Annoy Customers
16 Comments Latest comment by: Bron Gondwana
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When I first started this blog half a year ago for product managers and product marketers, I never thought I'll be writing an article titled "Don't annoy your customers".
Why didn't I think so? Well, we all know we shouldn't annoy our customers, right? It is stating the obvious - like telling an adult "Don't put your hand in the fire". You already know you will get burned if you do so - unless, of course, if you are Superman! 
Adobe Teaches Us What NOT To Do
Well, I got to give "credit" to Adobe for inspiring this "stating the obvious" article. Adobe, as you know, is one of the largest software companies in the world. It makes, among other products, the ubiquitous Acrobat Reader - a free software used to read PDF files.
A few days ago, I was surfing the web. On a journey through the mysterious paths created by this little invention we all love - hyperlinks - eagerly awaiting where each click might lead me - and hoping it is not to yet another site promising "Enlarge your breasts three cup sizes in just two weeks using natural pills extracted from rattlesnake venom". I'm really not that much interested in this sorta thing, given that I'm a guy and all!
In any case, I happened to run across a blog post by Des Traynor titled The Screaming Child of Software. I usually don't like posts that are a bit "ranty", but this one struck a chord right away. Des writes:
Last monday I updated Acrobat, because I accidentally clicked a PDF link. My desktop was hijacked, and basically Adobe decided that it wanted to install the Yahoo! toolbar, update its updater, and update itself. Then, upon rebooting, it all happened again.
I can see you wondering "Why did it strike a chord with Michael?". Wonder no more, the answer is below!
Don't Annoy Your Customers
While the older versions of Acrobat Reader (before v5.0) were very user-friendly, I have noticed that v5.0, v6.0 and v7.0 have become increasingly annoying. First, if you happen to click on a link to a PDF file - the whole browser freezes while Acrobat Reader loads itself.
The latest version (v7.0) takes so long to load, I can go get coffee at Starbucks in the meanwhile - a cup each at all five of their stores located within 2 miles of me!
Why does a software which is just a document reader take so long to load? I guess it is the good, old feature bloat. But this is the least of my concerns about Acrobat Reader.
You see - several times a month, it very intrusively insists that I need to update it without even giving me an option to tell it to go away and never bother me again. I can understand when my OS asks me to update it - after all, it is essential for security. I can even understand when the web browser tells me to do so - as it is a networking and communication software.
But Acrobat Reader? Come on - it is just a document reader. I have another document reader on my computer that does way, way more than Acrobat Reader - at least I think it does. It is called Microsoft Word - and it has never once asked me to update it, let alone doing so in a highly intrusive fashion. That is not all, either.
Check out the comments at the bottom of Des' blog post for even more Acrobat user complaints, including this one from Riley:
I'm a tech writer so I need to generate PDFs. I use Acrobat 5 to do that because it does everything I need it do.
Unfortunately, I need to test view the PDFs in "Free" Acrobat Reader 7. And here's where Adobe's obnoxiousness kicks in.
Reader 7 overwrote my file associations in such a way that I couldn't simply use the Windows' file associations tool to reset them. Instead, I needed to (a) remove the PDF-to-Reader 7 file asociations, then (b) reinstall Acrobat 5 and the 5.5 update to same.
As if that wasn't enough of a problem, Acrobat Reader periodically tries to force feed me "important" updates to itself. Each update, in turn, roughly shoves my existing configuration aside, obliging me to repeat steps "a" and "b" above.
Why Does Adobe Do It?
This brings us to the question of why Adobe might be doing this. After all, they are a successful company full of smart people. The best answer I can think of is the following. They must think since their Acrobat Reader is a "FREE" software, it is okay to annoy the freeloading schmucks - aka Acrobat Reader users. If so, this is a very flawed thinking. Here is why.
Adobe made ~ $400 Million in sales for their Acrobat product family (used to create the PDF files) in the last year - based on their public filings. This is only made possible by all those "freeloading schmucks". Without them, those customers who paid $400 Million to buy the Acrobat products wouldn't have.
I think Adobe should take a page from Google's playbook, another company which has "free users" (visitors to Google.com) as well as "paying customers" (advertisers on Google.com). Google makes the "free user" experience as good as possible - fully understanding those "free users" are the foundation for attracting "paying customers".
Just Don't Do It
Okay, what can we learn from all this? Here is my take:
The customer's (whether paying customer or free user) computer is her home. Our software is but only a guest. Let us create software that is courteous and behaves itself. Or else, sooner or later it will get kicked out and never let in again - usually as soon as they find a half-decent replacement.
I personally happen to like Adobe very much - I hope someone at Adobe reads this article (and Des Trayner's article too) and puts an end to this practice before Acrobat Reader users start defecting in droves. They are headquartered in my hometown and I want them to continue to be very successful.
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About the Author: I'm your author, Michael Shrivathsan, an expert in product management and product marketing with successful experience spanning two decades. I live in Silicon Valley, USA. For my day job, I manage the product management group at an exciting software startup.
Comments
Michael -
Good point about courteous software. For me the most annoying software is Real Player. It always acts in such an intrusive fashion. Adobe Reader is also annoying, yes I agree.
Of course, there is all the spyware and adsware products. But they are not legal products.
Posted by: Raj Pandi | July 15, 2006 01:12 AM
I didn't realize until I read your post, but yeah Acrobat is indeed very very irritating. I read your post yesterday and just 30 minutes ago Acrobat told me I have to update it or else. Adobe claims they are very customer centric. I remember reading this in an interview with their founder John Warnock a while ago. I guess they are not customer centric any more.
Posted by: Jennifer | July 16, 2006 12:24 PM
"I hope someone at Adobe reads this article...."
Des's piece was discussed in internal conversation last week, and I suspect your writing here will prompt similar discussions this week too. Sometimes it can take awhile to see changes in actual engineering, but these discussions of user-experience do get heard within Adobe, thanks.
Posted by: John Dowdell | July 17, 2006 01:37 PM
Michael, another well-written article. It is also very nice to see someone from Adobe respond. It shows at least that they care about their users. Now we will have to cross our fingers and see how the product changes. I also like Adobe, actually Macromedia, but now part of Adobe. I hope Flash doesn't become like Acrobat.
John, thanks for the comment. It reflects well on Adobe.
Posted by: Josh Thomson | July 17, 2006 10:29 PM
I found this blog through reddit. It is nice to see even large companies in the U.S. such as Adobe take criticysm well and respond for it on blogs. In my country, I really do not believe this will happen. Hence shows why the U.S. companies are so very successfull.
Nice blog by the way. I perform product management in my job as well and I will come back again.
Posted by: Fabrice F. | July 18, 2006 01:03 AM
Great post Michael. I've been planning to write about simplicity for a couple of months now and your post gave me just the push I needed! Now there is yet another Acrobat-inspired plea for software sanity rolling through the blogsphere.
Posted by: Jerry | July 18, 2006 06:50 PM
I'm glad others are feeling an annoyed as I am about Adobe's intrusiveness. I'm so sick of getting their pop ups when I open an Acrobat file. About a month ago I made the mistake of updating to the new version as they suggested because I was tired of seeing their update message. I figured it would run in the background and wouldn't take very long, etc. Was that a mistake! An hour later it was still installing and I couldn't do anything on my computer while this was all going on. After this, I figured I was up to date and wouldn't have to worry about messages for awhile. Oh no, another message popped up just one day after I upgraded. Today it tells me I'm 3 updates behind. Talk about rediculous! I've always been an Acrobat fan, but now hope another company will come out with something better.
Posted by: Toni | July 19, 2006 10:41 AM
If Michael had not written his post, I would have. That is how much it resonates with me.
This annoying practice of popping up "update me" messages everyday I want to read a pdf document and the hiring of some incompetent developers who think it is okay to freeze the entire browser including all the tabs for minutes to open a 2 page pdf just makes me hate adobe now.
Does anyone know if their top management has changed in the last two years? Just curious...
I still remember those times when I use to admire this company.
Posted by: Amol | July 19, 2006 01:58 PM
It is nice to know that I'm not the only one who went from thinking Adobe was a great company for making Adobe Reader free to hating them for making Reader such a pain.
I am beginning to feel a consumer backlash against companies that try to exploit their relationship with their customer to any degree. I used to shop at the supermarket. Now, the register is watching what I purchase and making "suggestions" in the form of coupons. I used to watch movies in the theater with one or two previews. Now I'm forced to watch 15 minute of ads. I used to watch two or three movies per month and now I watch two or three per year. DVDs, which also have annoying commercials (but at least I can skip them) cater to my needs better.
Posted by: Nelson | July 20, 2006 12:10 AM
Hi Michael,
Thanks for the link. Glad to see someone else shares my frustration, and I have to say I am delighted that someone from Adobe took the time to read this post, and mine too. Massive software companies like Adobe often are seen as impenetrable giants who don't care about the end users, but clearly they are at least listening, and hopefully reacting.
I really like your final quote, nice one.
Des Traynor
Posted by: Des Traynor | July 20, 2006 07:45 AM
My suspicion goes to that companies get large and with largeness they get more "managers" to produce "shareholder value". So they must earn money and sell "adware places" to other companies like Yahoo (the toolbar).
The consider "free customers" not as a source of money (which is the only thing that counts when they get on stock exchange) and therefore they start to install all kinds of toolbars.
But they are wrong.
I am already using a free pdf maker AND viewer. Adobe lost me here. I once even bought Adobe PDFMaker/Distiller 4 but do not use it anymore.
So: lost a paying customer
too bad
Posted by: Stoka | July 20, 2006 07:54 AM
I personally use Foxit Reader. It is a single .exe file that is a fully functional--and most importantly--FAST pdf reader. I don't know how many times I had to wait through that stupid Acrobat Reader splash screen everytime I clicked a pdf link. Foxit isn't a browser plugin of course, but I never really needed to view pdfs in my browser.
Posted by: Jeremy Grozavescu | July 20, 2006 09:52 AM
I second the use of Foxit Reader. http://www.foxitsoftware.com.
Since finding it after reading the Des article I have removed Adobe and use foxit. It is excellent.
Posted by: David Stokes | July 21, 2006 10:24 PM
I also switched to Foxit. So far I haven't missed the slow-to-load-suck-up-all-my-machines-processor-cycles Adobe bloatware!
Posted by: Rick | July 22, 2006 03:02 PM
This free utility will reduce the time it takes to launch acrobat reader.
On my laptop, it went from 5+ to sub-second.
Don't worry, it's safe.:)
http://www.acropdf.com/pdfsu.exe
Posted by: Pedro | August 2, 2006 01:10 AM
Too right, I had to view a PDF file on my wife's Windows XP laptop yesterday, and I had almost forgotten how much of a pain it is to live in a world where Acrobat is the standard PDF viewer.
My regular browser is either Firefox or Konqueror on Ubuntu Dapper. In konqueror especially, PDFs just load in an embedded kpdf instance and it's all smooth and immediate. There is no freeze.
Last time (many years ago now) I used the pay product it was even more painful than Acrobat reader on the same hardware, so I really don't know what they are thinking. Bring on the competition that forces Adobe to improve-or-die.
Posted by: Bron Gondwana | August 6, 2006 12:28 AM