Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Driver.js: Product tours, highlights, contextual help and more

driverjs.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 108 posts

Re: Driver.js: Product tours, highlights, contextual help and more

#71

Post by tekchip »

enraged_camel wrote: post #59
smt88 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Apple famously doesn't do any of this with your iPhone You're arguing in favor of a product tour. iOS usability is garbage. There are no affordances. Nothing is discoverable. There are a million inputs (mostly gestures) that no one ever finds out about unless someone tells them or they Google it, and they're not consistent across apps, even first-party apps. Sometimes "swipe the row left" means "remove," sometimes…

>> iOS usability is garbage Yes, that must be why my technologically illiterate 90-year-old grandpa was able to figure out how to use an iPhone after being shown a single swipe gesture.

My 65, at the time, year old father figured out Android just fine. What point was your n of 1 example trying to make?

Please try to keep in mind there is a wide breadth of technical prowess, thought patterns, and comprehension out there. What works great for some people doesn't for others. Also something to keep it mind being able to "figure something out" or "use it" doesn't necessarily make it a good experience, or an ideal one.

Re: Driver.js: Product tours, highlights, contextual help and more

#72

Post by ebiester »

kristiandupont wrote: post #23
local_issues wrote: post #16

No no no no no. Design your product to be understandable at first pass. Apple famously doesn't do any of this with your iPhone, while Sony forces you to do it on every new device. Let the onboarding be a forcing function for usability. This isn't a crutch, it's something worse and damaging.

Hm.. I find that Apple products have tons of hidden features that I discover after years of usage. I appreciate the clean lines, I really do, but it does have a tradeoff when it comes to discoverability, so this policy is debatable IMO.

They have the "Tips" application that has all of the features. It's on the front of a new app. What is stopping you from discovering it?

Re: Driver.js: Product tours, highlights, contextual help and more

#74

Post by philvb »

Tours aren't always bad, but they're often just poorly implemented, with too many steps that don't mean anything to the user. Onboarding that's contextual, like embedded tips, or relevant, like targeted onboarding by persona, or action-oriented onboarding, like checklists tend to be better.

After leading onboarding and in-app education teams at Dropbox, I started Dopt [0], which is a react component library and SDKs to make it easier to build tours, but also more contextual and less distracting onboarding experiences like embedded tips and checklists. My hope with Dopt is that you can still build tours when necessary (like 2 step tours to introduce a new feature), but have a bigger and better toolkit for all types of onboarding and education.

[0] https://dopt.com/

Re: Driver.js: Product tours, highlights, contextual help and more

#75

Post by philvb »

local_issues wrote: post #16

No no no no no. Design your product to be understandable at first pass. Apple famously doesn't do any of this with your iPhone, while Sony forces you to do it on every new device. Let the onboarding be a forcing function for usability. This isn't a crutch, it's something worse and damaging.

You really need both: solid, intuitive product design and good new user onboarding. Even with a great product, new uses will still need help discovering and understanding how to get value from your product.

Tooltips aren't always the answer though. Onboarding that's more seamlessly integrated into the experience are better, like Retool, Superhuman, or Intercom. You can see those experiences here: https://twitter.com/philvb/status/1617921908510699520?s=20&t...

Re: Driver.js: Product tours, highlights, contextual help and more

#76

Post by Etheryte »

sgc wrote: post #69
Etheryte wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People not knowing some of the features is not really a problem, because it doesn't matter. Every single one of my elderly relatives can use an iPhone after a quick intro and they don't need help afterwards. The device is essentially self-serve once you understand one or two core ideas. Them not knowing about some features is not a problem, they can do all the important things without someone helping them out. No oth…

Come on, iOS is not so special. Grandmas all over the world get by just fine on an Android as well. If you don't do much with your device, you don't need much. At the same time, it is obvious that gestures should be consistent, and the documentation should be clear, on device, and easy to find.

I think this is a point where we'll fundamentally disagree, for all practical intents and purposes, no regular user ever has or ever will read the manual for their smartphone. Your phone comes with one, have you read it? Documentation is a crutch for complexity and it's only acceptable for hard topics and advanced users. Most people don't even touch the manuals for all the appliances they own, never mind your elderly relatives. If they run into a problem, they'll ask someone to help, not look for the manual.

Re: Driver.js: Product tours, highlights, contextual help and more

#77

Post by superdug »

sgc wrote: post #69
Etheryte wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People not knowing some of the features is not really a problem, because it doesn't matter. Every single one of my elderly relatives can use an iPhone after a quick intro and they don't need help afterwards. The device is essentially self-serve once you understand one or two core ideas. Them not knowing about some features is not a problem, they can do all the important things without someone helping them out. No oth…

Come on, iOS is not so special. Grandmas all over the world get by just fine on an Android as well. If you don't do much with your device, you don't need much. At the same time, it is obvious that gestures should be consistent, and the documentation should be clear, on device, and easy to find.

I think you’re missing a key fact about who cell phone users _can_ _be_. The dumbest people on this planet can still pick up any iPhone anywhere and be able to use it even if they’ve never used the device itself once. It’s muscle memory to people who wouldn’t know what to do with a manual in the first place. You have to accept that there is no barrier to advanced communication technology to anyone with the means to procure said devices. While I appreciate a finely tuned platform for my technology uses, I still carry an iPhone in particular so that I don’t need to do all of that advanced tweaking and personalization by sacrificing maybe 5% of my overall performance by using an unmodified iPhone running iOS in particular. Sacrificing that 5% of performance means the device has no barrier of entry for 99.9% of humans old enough and cognizant enough to procure a similar technology and be able to fully interact with me on a digital medium. Bringing it back to the topic at hand, those 99.9% of people includes family members who didn’t grow up with electricity let alone technology.

Re: Driver.js: Product tours, highlights, contextual help and more

#78

Post by joshmanders »

local_issues wrote: post #16

No no no no no. Design your product to be understandable at first pass. Apple famously doesn't do any of this with your iPhone, while Sony forces you to do it on every new device. Let the onboarding be a forcing function for usability. This isn't a crutch, it's something worse and damaging.

> Apple famously doesn't do any of this with your iPhone

I just got a new iPhone and set it up from scratch yesterday... They do this, and it's everywhere.

Re: Driver.js: Product tours, highlights, contextual help and more

#79

Post by superdug »

tekchip wrote: post #71
enraged_camel wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> iOS usability is garbage Yes, that must be why my technologically illiterate 90-year-old grandpa was able to figure out how to use an iPhone after being shown a single swipe gesture.

My 65, at the time, year old father figured out Android just fine. What point was your n of 1 example trying to make? Please try to keep in mind there is a wide breadth of technical prowess, thought patterns, and comprehension out there. What works great for some people doesn't for others. Also something to keep it mind being able to "figure something out" or "use it" doesn't necessarily make it a good experience, or…

Please excuse the last remnants of the technology debate of “Are Apple products worth the higher price tag of their very capable competitors?” It’s been happening since Apple came into existence with people defending or arguing against Macintosh computers to where it is now with cell phones and the higher cost of entry priced iPhones. The ecosystem Apple created is the great divider. It’s a closed garden in every sense of the word, but still a great garden where if you’re okay with the HOA, you can live right on top of.

Re: Driver.js: Product tours, highlights, contextual help and more

#80

Post by not_your_vase »

Etheryte wrote: post #64
smt88 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Apple famously doesn't do any of this with your iPhone You're arguing in favor of a product tour. iOS usability is garbage. There are no affordances. Nothing is discoverable. There are a million inputs (mostly gestures) that no one ever finds out about unless someone tells them or they Google it, and they're not consistent across apps, even first-party apps. Sometimes "swipe the row left" means "remove," sometimes…

People not knowing some of the features is not really a problem, because it doesn't matter. Every single one of my elderly relatives can use an iPhone after a quick intro and they don't need help afterwards. The device is essentially self-serve once you understand one or two core ideas. Them not knowing about some features is not a problem, they can do all the important things without someone helping them out. No oth…

Haha, every few weeks I do some magic gesture, and my iPad duplicates the current application in a separate window. I never did it intentionally, and to this day I have no idea how to do it back. Also, I can't fathom who and why would want to do it.

But the good, old Apple troubleshooting works: nuke it, and start again. If I close the app and restart it, then it's back to its single window form.

Oh, well.

Post reply on HN