Why employ an expensive solicitor when you can create a will yourself, courtesy of some clever document assembly software and the relevant up-to-date advice? That's the theory behind Will Maker Deluxe 2009, a program designed to walk you through choosing, planning and creating a legally binding will.

Some background first. While you don't have to make a will, you're mad if you don't, because your property and possessions will otherwise be dished out according to the law of the land, rather than according to your wishes.

A will lets you decide how to share your assets, provide for your partner if the two or you aren't married, or a former partner if you're divorced, sort out the kids and keep a lid on any inheritance tax due. Note that once you've made a will, you may need to update it if your circumstances change, and it needs to be stored safely.

Will Maker is divided into three sections: choosing the right kind of will, planning what's going to go in it and then creating it. The program lets you make wills suitable for many individuals and couples, married and unmarried, and which are valid in England and Wales under English law.

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Clicking on the Will Selection menu opens a PDF document with a flow chart that walks you through the different kinds of wills available. Make your choice and then you're ready for a second PDF which discusses Will and Inheritance Tax Planning and includes a handy checklist of facts you'll need to know as well as good advice on preparing guidance for your executors (called a letter of wishes) and various other important estate-related stuff.

After that, you're ready to get started by choosing your will template and then personalising it. The process is pretty straightforward: the document appears in the main window, the side panel contains the various questions you need to answer and a series of context-sensitive pop-ups offer advice and examples.

When you've finished, you should save the will and then print it out, have it bound and then witnessed properly. For those who are still uncertain, there's supposed to be a paid-for service which will check the legality of the final will.

Will Maker Deluxe uses Rapidocs, an automated document creation program that's been around since 1996 - and boy, does it show. It's ugly and old-fashioned, the menus on the opening screen are poorly signposted, the overall branding is bizarre (is this product from Avanquest, Desktop Lawyer, Mediator, Epoq or Rapidocs?), the links in the PDFs and the buttons on the main menu that invite you to register or upgrade your will don't work, and anyway, having to swap back and forth between the program and a PDF reader seems pretty cack-handed.

In addition, when you go through the PDF guidance you'll discover there's no obvious distinction between those wills that are included and those that are only available if you upgrade (or would be if the upgrade button worked). That said, the actual process of adding your own information works well enough, though some of the steps that allow multiple entries - different children, specific gifts to different people - aren't very intuitive.

Don't choose this if you think it's going to be some sort of Will-U-Like where you feed in a few details and a will pops out the other end. Using this product requires preparation and we wouldn't advise trying to absorb all the advisory information in one sitting. The company's also very clear that what's being offered here is ‘guidance' rather than ‘advice' and the disclaimer recommends you check with a lawyer if you have any doubts at all, which kind of defeats the object.

In the right circumstances there's a decent product lurking in here somewhere which could genuinely save you money on legal fees. But it's buried beneath an out of date and unintuitive interface, and since some of its important functions, like registering and upgrading your will, point to pages on the web that aren't there anymore, it doesn't inspire confidence.