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 show you what not to do.

This is the Three Home Signal Box - it is a femtocell to improve reception at home.

It arrived in a fairly anonymous postal sack, and has an easy to open box.

Knowing that the audience aren't likely to be technical, it comes with some reassuring messages on it. Good!

This is, of course, a lie.

The instruction card is a little boring, but does the job.

Just plug in the cables! Easy. There's even a picture guide. So, I followed the instructions, plugged in the cables, but nothing worked.

I checked the packaging. There was a warning sticker on there - obviously added after the box was printed. Revisions to packaging in response to customer feedback is sometimes necessary. A slightly ugly hack, but better than nothing.

I checked the flashing lights on the unit. Then re-read the instructions. The very last troubleshooting tip is check that the SIM card is inserted.

What SIM card? This was all that was in the box.

I retrieving the postal sack from the bin. This is what I found inside:

I've no idea why there's a spare PAYG SIM there - or how many people get confused and put the wrong SIM in. But I do know that this is a crappy way to bundle necessary equipment.

Ideally, this is what Three should do:

1. Pre-install the SIM.
2. If they can't, put the SIM in the same box as the device.
3. Make sure the instructions tell people to plug in the SIM before they attach the cables.
4. Stick some instructions on the back of the box, perhaps.

To be fair, once I'd found the SIM, it did tell me what to do with it. Well, I say that. It didn't tell me that I had snap the SIM from the holder. But the instructions on the card's packaging say "For more instructions, see the getting started guide." The same guide that doesn't mention you need to install the SIM!

There is, of course, nothing on the Three website relating to this problem.

Usability testing isn't finished until the user has the product in their hands and have successfully set it up. I've no idea how may dejected customer service agents are giving an exasperated sigh of "and have you put the little green card in the box?"

Make it easy. Make it right.

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".

1. Ask Amazon
2. Open your Kindle, remove the SIM card, place the SIM in a phone, dial the USSD code *#100#
3. IMSI->MSISDN translation

Confused? Read on.

Asking Amazon

This got me nowhere. I send them an email and they asked to phone me back. The tech support there are very friendly and helpful - but they simply didn't know how to find out the phone number.

Opening The Kindle

If you have nerves of steel - and I don't - check out this disassembly guide. You risk damaging your expensive new toy and voiding your warranty.

Hack it :-)

Click For Bigger

To get this diagnostic information do the following.

• Turn the Kindle on and unlock it.
• Press Menu
• Press Settings
• Hold down the Alt key
• While holding down Alt, type Y Q Q
• Ta da!

Make a note of the IMSI, IMEI and SIM number (ICCID).

The Tricky Part

Find someone at Vodafone who is willing to do an IMSI->MSISDN translation. (IMSI is the internal number, MSISDN is your 07 phone number).

You could try your luck calling 191, or emailing customer services. They may (genuinely) have no idea what you are talking about. See if you can get escalated to someone technical who will be able to look up the number for you. It is likely that they'll ask for the IMEI (device serial number) or ICCID (SIM card serial number) to verify that the device is yours.

I'm indebted to my Anonymous Mole who kindly performed this for me. No, I won't reveal her name. Or his. Or its. One of the joys of hacking is social engineering your way to someone who can help you.

Adding It To The SureSignal

The first time I tried to add it to the SureSignal - I got this error.

So, I dropped an email to Vodafone asking them to manually add the phone number to my account.

Sadly, this was the reply I got.

After a bit of prompting, explaining that the SIM was in a Kindle, I got back this. So, no adding Kindles - or any other MVNO SIM to a SureSignal :-(

Hang on! Isn't this UTTERLY pointless?

Why, yes. Yes it is. The 3G version of the Kindle comes with WiFi. The WiFi connection allows you to download converted Kindle documents for free. The 3G connection will charge you for the data transfer.

All things considered; it's better to just use WiFi where you can.