The review with the unfamiliar complaint

Text: an original contemporary consumer-essay-style practice extract.

The walking shoes suited me so well that I almost dismissed a one-star review as unreasonable. The reviewer complained that the fastening was difficult to grip. I had closed it in seconds. I began typing that the problem must be the user, then stopped because I had no idea what hands the user was working with.

I tried the fastening while wearing thick gloves. It became less easy, though that experiment could not tell me what the reviewer’s experience had been. It did show that my original judgement had depended on conditions I had treated as invisible. Another review praised the same design because it prevented a lace from coming loose. The two accounts did not have to cancel each other. They could describe different demands placed on one object.

I kept the shoes and deleted my reply. The low rating had not made my satisfaction false. My satisfaction had not explained away the complaint. I now read a review first as an account of a particular use, before deciding whether its verdict supplies useful information about mine.

In this extract, the writer tries to encourage readers to consider why another person’s judgement differs from their own.

Evaluate how successfully this is achieved. Support your views with detailed reference to the extract.