The Botanicalls Kit is one of the coolest new products around: a circuit board and components that, when properly assembled, plugged into AC and ethernet, and sunk into plant soil, can send tweets or text messages about your plant’s water needs.

Since this is a DIY kit, the assembly instructions are essential to customer success with the product. I haven’t actually tried to follow them (because I haven’t shelled out $99 for a kit), but they appear clear and thorough, with lots of step-by-step photos.

But apparently, there are a few pieces of information missing that would be useful, indicated by a posting on the user forums entitled Things I wish you said in your docs …. This kind of feedback is absolutely golden. Rarely do customers express so clearly and explicitly (and in technical detail, in this case) when they need that you haven’t given them.

This particular posting has been up for a week with no response from Botanicalls staff, as of this writing. That’s a shame. The appropriate response to this kind of feedback is an immediate big fat “Thank you!”, along with an explanation of what you’re going to do with the feedback. It may or may not be appropriate to include the requested information in the documentation, but the feedback should not go unanswered.